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ENGLISH  LANDS  LETTERS 
AND  KINGS 


3from  i£li3abetb  to  Bnne 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


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ENGLISH  LANDS  LETTERS 


AND  KINGS 


Jfrom  BUsaiJetb  to  Hnne 


BY 

/ 

Donald  G.  Mitchell 


NEW  YORK 

dbarles  Scribner’s  Sons 


MDCCCCVII 


/S/\  Co  ^ 

V.  ci. 


Copyright,  i8go>  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW’8 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANV, 
NEW  YORK. 


PREFATORY  LETTER. 


[To  Mrs.  J.  C.  G.  Piatt,  of  Utica  School,  N.  Y.] 

My  Dear  Julia,  — We  have  both  known.^  in  the  past,  a 
certain  delightsome  comitry  home  ; you — in  earliest  childhood, 
and  I — in  latest  youth-time  : and  I think  we  both  relish  those 
reminders — perhaps  a Kodak  view,  or  an  atitumn  gentian 
plucked  by  the  roadside,  or  actual  glimpse  of  its  woods,  or 
brook,  on  some  summer'^ s drive — which  have  brought  back  the 
old  homestead,  with  its  great  stretch  of  undulating  meadow — 
its  elms — its  shady  lanes — its  singing  birds — its  leistirely  going 
big-eyed  oxen — its  long,  tranquil  days,  when  the  large  heart  of 
June  was  pulsing  in  all  the  leaves  and  all  the  air  : 

Well,  even  so,  and  by  these  light  tracings  of  Lands  and  Icings, 
and  little  whiffs  of  metric  music,  I seek  to  bring  back  to  you, 
and  to  yotir  pupils  and  associates  (who  have  so  kindly  received 
previous  and  kindred  reminders')  the  rich  memories  of  that  great 
current  of  English  letters  setting  steadily  forward  amongst 
these  British  lands,  and  these  sovereigns,  from  Elizabeth  to 
Anne»  But  slight  as  these  glimpses  are,  and  as  this  synopsis 
may  be,  they  will  together  serve,  I hope,  to  fasten  attentioji 
•where  I wish  to  fasten  it,  and  to  quicken  appetite  for  those 
fuller  and  larger  studies  of  English  Literature  and  History, 
which  shall  make  even  these  sketchy  outlines  valued — as  one 
values  little  flowerets  plucked  from  old  fields — for  bringing 
again  to  mhid  the  summers  of  yotith-time,  and  a world  of  sum- 
mer days,  with  their  birds  and  abounding  bloom^ 


A ffectionately  yours. 


EDGETVOOD  ; MARCH,  1890. 


D,  G.  I\L 


s 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PA09 

Preliminary,  . • 1 

The  Stuart  Line,  . 4 

James  L,  6 

Walter  Ealeigh,  .11 

Nigel  and  Harrison,  . . . • . .19 

A London  Bride, 23 

Ben  Jonson  Again, 26 

An  Italian  Eeporter, 29 

Shakespeare  and  the  Globe,  . , , . . 32 


CHAPTER  11. 

Gosson  and  Other  Puritans,  . ^ 42 

King  James’  Bible,  ....  r * 44 

Shakespeare, , 56 

Shakespeare’s  Youth,  . . . . o .61 
Family  Relations,  . . . , . • ^ 67 

Shakespeare  in  London,  ....«•  73 
Work  and  Reputation,  . . . • , .77 

His  Thrift  and  Closing  Years,  ...  .81 


CONTENTS. 


viii 


CHAPTER  m. 

Webster,  Ford,  and  Others, 

, 

PAGS 

88 

Massinger,  Beaumont,  and  Fletcher, 

. 93 

King  James  and  Family, 

. 

99 

A New  King  and  some  Literary  Survivors, 

, 105 

WOTTON  AND  WALTON,  . • • • 

. 

. 109 

George  Herbert,  • . . . 

• 

. 115 

Robert  Herrick,  . . » • • 

• 

. 12G 

Revolutionary  Times, 

o 

. 126 

CHAPTER  IV. 

King  Charles  and  his  Friends,  . 

9 

. 132 

Jeremy  Taylor, 

• 

r 

. 135 

A Royalist  and  a Puritan,  . 

• 

. 140 

Cowley  and  Waller, 

• 

. 144 

John  Milton, 

. 

. 150 

Milton’s  Marriage,  . • . . 

• 

. 157 

The  Royal  Tragedy,  . . . • 

. 

. 161 

Change  op  Kings,  .... 

. 

. 167 

Last  Days, 

• 

. 174 

CHAPTER  V. 

Charles  II.  and  his  Friends,  . 

• 

. 182 

Andrew  Marvell, 

« 

. 189 

Author  op  Hudibras, 

« 

• 

. 193 

Samuel  Pepys, 

. 

. 198 

A Scientist, 

John  Bunyan, 

. 209 

CONTENTS. 


IX 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

PAGE 

Three  Good  Prosers, 221 

John  Dryden, 227 

The  London  op  Dryden, 234 

Later  Poems  and  Purpose, 240 

John  Locke,  ........  248 

End  of  the  King  and  Others,  ....  255 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

Kings  Charles,  James,  and  William,  . . . 261 


Some  Literary  Fellows, 268 

A Pamphleteer, 272 

Of  Queen  Anne, 277 

An  Irish  Dragoon, 280 

Steele’s  Literary  Qualities,  ....  285 

Joseph  Addison, 288 

Sir  Eoger  De  Coverley, 291 


CHAPTEE  Vni. 

Royal  Griefs  and  Friends, 301 

Builders  and  Streets, 306 

John  Gay, 308 

Jonathan  Swift, 312 

Swift’s  Politics, 324 

His  London  Journal, 328 

In  Ireland  Again,  .......  333 


ENGLISH  LANDS,  LETTERS, 
& KINGS. 


CHAPTER  L 

E take  outlook  to-day  from  the  threshold  of 


* » the  seventeenth  century.  Elizabeth  is  dead 
(1603),  but  not  England.  The  powers  it  had  grown 
to  under  her  quickening  offices  are  all  alive.  The 
great  Spanish  dragon  has  its  teeth  drawn  ; Cadiz 
has  been  despoiled,  and  huge  galleons,  gold-laden, 
have  come  trailing  into  Devon  ports.  France  is 
courteously  friendly.  Holland  and  England  are  in 
leash,  as  against  the  fainter-growing  blasts  of  Pope- 
dom. In  Ireland,  Tyrone  has  been  whipped  into 
bloody  quietude.  A syndicate  of  London  mer- 
chants, dealing  in  pepper  and  spices,  has  made  the 


IL— 1 


2 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


beginnings  of  that  East-Indian  empire  which  gives 
to  the  present  British  sovereign  her  proudest  title. 
London  is  growing  apace  in  riches  and  in  houses  ; 
though  her  shipping  counts  for  less  than  the  Dutch 
shipping,  great  cargoes  come  and  go  through  the 
Thames — spices  from  the  East,  velvets  and  glass 
from  the  Mediterranean,  cloths  from  the  Baltic. 
Cheapside  is  glittering  with  the  great  array  of  gold- 
smiths’ shops  four  stories  high,  and  new  painted 
and  new  gilded  (in  1594)  by  Sir  Eichard  Martin, 
Mayor.  The  dudes  of  that  time  walk  and  ‘‘  pub- 
lish” their  silken  suits  there,  and  thence  through  all 
the  lanes  leading  to  Paul’s  Walk  — which  is,  effect- 
ively, the  aisle  of  the  great  church.  There  are  no- 
blemen who  have  tall  houses  in  the  city  and  others 
who  have  built  along  the  Strand,  with  fine  grounds 
reaching  to  the  river  and  looking  out  upon  the 
woods  which  skirt  the  bear-gardens  of  Bankside 
in  Southwark.  The  river  is  all  alive  with  boats  — 
wherries,  barges,  skiffs.  There  are  no  hackney 
carriages  as  yet  for  hire ; but  rich  folks  here  and 
there  rumble  along  the  highways  in  heavy  Flemish 
coaches. 

Some  of  the  great  lights  we  have  seen  in  the  in- 


ADVENT  OF  JAMES.  3 

tellectual  firmament  of  England  have  set.  Bur- 
leigh is  gone  ; Hooker  is  gone,  in  the  prime  of  his 
years ; Spenser  gone,  Marlowe  gone,  Sidney  gone. 
But  enough  are  left  at  the  opening  of  the  century 
and  at  the  advent  of  James  (1603)  to  keep  the  great 
trail  of  Elizabethan  literary  splendors  all  aglow. 
George  Chapman  (of  the  Homer)  is  alive  and  ac- 
tive ; and  so  are  Ealeigh,  and  Francis  Bacon,  and 
Heywood,  and  Dekker,  and  Lodge.  Shakespeare  is 
at  his  best,  and  is  acting  in  his  own  plays  at  the 
newly  built  Globe  Theatre.  Michael  Drayton  is  in 
full  vigor,  plotting  and  working  at  the  tremendous 
poem  from  which  we  culled  — in  advance  — a page- 
ful of  old  English  posies.  Ben  Jonson,  too,  is  all 
himself,  whom  we  found  a giant  and  a swaggerer, 
yet  a man  of  great  learning  and  capable  of  the  de- 
licious bits  of  poesy  which  I cited.  You  will  fur- 
ther remember  how  we  set  right  the  story  of  poor 
Amy  Eobsart  — told  of  the  great  Queen’s  vanities  — 
of  her  visitings  — of  her  days  of  illness  — and  of  the 
death  of  the  last  sovereign  of  the  name  of  Tudor. 


4 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


The  Stuart  Line. 

Henceforth,  for  much  time  to  come,  we  shall 
meet  — when  we  encounter  British  royalty  at  all  — 
with  men  of  the  house  of  Stuart.  But  how  comes 
about  this  shifting  of  the  thrones  from  the  family 
of  Tudor  to  the  family  of  Stuart  ? I explained  in 
a recent  chapter  how  the  name  of  Tudor  became 
connected  with  the  crown,  by  the  marriage  of  a 
Welsh  knight  — Owen  Tudor  — with  Katharine, 
widow  of  Henry  V.  Now  let  us  trace,  if  we  can, 
this  name  of  Stuart.  Henry  VH.  was  a Tudor, 
and  so  was  Henry  VHI. ; so  were  his  three  children 
who  succeeded  him  — Edward,  the  bigot  Mary,  and 
Elizabeth  ; no  one  of  these,  however,  left  direct 
heirs ; but  Henry  VHI.  had  a sister,  Margaret,  who 
married  James  IV.  of  Scotland.  This  James  was  a 
lineal  descendant  of  a daughter  of  Kobert  Bruce, 
who  had  married  Walter  Stuart,  the  chief  of  a 
powerful  Scotch  family.  That  James  I.  of  whom  I 
have  spoken,  who  was  a delicate  poet,  and  so  long  a 
prisoner  in  Windsor  Tower,  was  great-grandson  of 
this  Stuart-daughter  of  Robert  Bruce.  And  from 


ROYAL  STUARTS. 


5 


him  — that  is  from  James  I.  — was  directly  de- 
scended James  IV.,  who  married  the  sister  of 
Henry  VHL  James  IV.  had  a son,  succeeding 
him,  called  James  V.  who  by  a French  marriage, 
became  the  father  of  that  Frenchy  queen,  poor 
Marie  of  Scotland,  who  suffered  at  Fotheringay, 
and  who  had  married  her  cousin,  Henry  Darnley 
(he  also  having  Stuart  blood),  by  whom  she  had  a 
son,  James  Stuart — being  James  VI.  of  Scotland 
and  James  I.  of  England,  who  now  succeeds  Eliz- 
abeth. 

This  strong  Scotch  strain  in  the  Stuart  line  of 
royalty  will  explain,  in  a certain  degree,  how  ready 
so  clannish  a people  as  the  Scotch  were  to  join  in- 
surrection in  favor  of  the  exiled  Stuarts  ; a readi- 
ness you  will  surely  remember  if  you  have  read 
Waverley  and  Redgauntlet  And  in  further  con- 
firmation of  this  clannish  love,  you  will  recall  the 
ever-renewed  and  gossipy  boastfulness  with  which 
the  old  Scotch  gentlewoman,  Lady  Margaret  Bell- 
enden,  in  Old  Mortality^  tells  over  and  over  of  the 
morning  when  his  most  gracious  majesty  Charles 
n.  partook  of  his  disjune  at  Tillietudlem  Castle. 

But  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  so  late  affairs 


6 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


now,  and  I have  only  made  this  diversion  into  Scot- 
land to  emphasize  the  facts  about  the  Stuart  affi- 
liation to  the  throne  of  England,  and  the  reasons 
for  Scotch  readiness  to  fling  caps  in  the  air  for  Enng 
Charlie  or  for  the  Pretender, 


James  I 

And  now  what  sort  of  person  was  this  James 
Stuart,  successor  to  Elizabeth?  He  was  a man  in 
his  thirty-eighth  year,  who  had  been  a king  — or 
called  a king,  of  Scotland  — ever  since  he  was  a 
baby  of  twelve  months  old  ; and  in  many  matters  he 
was  a baby  still.  He  loved  bawbles  as  a child  loves 
its  rattle ; loved  bright  feathers  too  — to  dress  his 
cap  withal ; was  afraid  of  a drawn  sword  and  of 
hobgoblins.  He  walked,  from  some  constitutional 
infirmity,  with  the  uncertain  step  of  a child  — sway- 
ing about  in  a ram-shackle  way  — steadying  himself 
with  a staff  or  a hold  upon  the  shoulder  of  some 
attendant.  He  slobbered  when  he  ate,  so  that  his 
silken  doublet  — quilted  to  be  proof  against  dag- 
gers— was  never  of  the  cleanest.  He  had  a big 
head  and  protruding  eyes,  and  would  laugh  and 


JAMES  L 7 

talk  broad  Scotch  with  a blundering  and  halting 
tongue,  and  crack  unsavoiy  jokes  with  his  groom 
or  his  barber. 

Yet  he  had  a certain  kindness  of  heart ; he  hated 
to  see  suffering,  though  he  had  no  objection  to  suf- 
fering he  did  not  see  ; the  sight  of  blood  almost 
made  him  faint ; his  affection  for  favorites  some- 
times broke  out  into  love-sick  drivel.  Withal  he 
had  an  acute  mind  ; he  had  written  bad  poems, 
before  he  left  Scotland,  calling  himself  modestly  a 
royal  apprentice  at  that  craft.  He  had  a certain 
knack  at  logical  fence  and  loved  to  argue  a man  to 
death ; he  had  power  of  invective,  as  he  showed  in 
his  GounterUast  to  Tobacco  — of  which  I will  give 
a whiff  by  and  by.  He  had  languages  at  command, 
and  loved  to  show  it ; for  he  had  studied  long  and 
hard  in  his  young  days,  under  that  first  and  best 
of  Scotch  scholars  and  pedagogues  — George  Bu- 
chanan. He  had,  in  general,  a great  respect  for 
sacred  things,  and  for  religious  observances  — 
which  did  not  prevent  him,  in  his  moments  of  pet- 
ulant wrath  or  of  wine-y  exaltation,  from  swearing 
with  a noisy  vehemence.  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury  — elder  brother  of  the  poet  Herbert,  and 


8 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


English  ambassador  to  France  — wittily  excused 
this  habit  of  his  sovereign,  by  saying  he  was  too 
kind  to  anathematize  men  himself,  and  therefore 
asked  God  to  do  so. 

This  was  the  man  who  was  to  succeed  the  great 
and  courtly  Elizabeth  ; this  was  the  man  toward 
whom  all  the  place-hunters  of  the  court  now  di- 
rected their  thoughts,  and  (many  of  them)  their 
steps  too,  eager  to  be  among  the  foremost  to  bow 
in  obsequience  before  him  ; besieging  him,  as  every 
United  States  President  is  besieged,  and  will  be 
besieged,  until  the  disgraceful  hunt  for  spoils  is 
checked  by  soma  nobler  purpose  on  the  part  of  po- 
litical victors  than  the  rewarding  of  the  partisans. 

There  was  Sir  Eobert  Cary  — a far-away  cousin 
of  Elizabeth’s  — who  was  so  bewitched  to  be  fore- 
most in  this  agreeable  business  that  he  dashes 
away  at  a headlong  gallop,  night  and  day  — before 
the  royal  couriers  have  started  — gets  thrown  from 
his  horse,  who  gave  him  a vicious  blow  with  his 
heels,  which  he  says  made  me  shed  much  blood.” 
But  he  pushes  on  and  carries  first  to  Edinburgh  the 
tidings  of  the  Queen’s  deatL  Three  days  of  the 
sharpest  riding  would  only  carry  the  news  in  those 


JAMES  /. 


9 


days ; and  the  court  messenger  took  a week  or  so 
to  get  over  the  heavy  roads  between  the  Scotch 
capital  and  London. 

It  does  not  appear  that  James  made  a show  of 
much  sorrow ; he  must  have  remembered  keenly, 
through  all  his  stolidity,  how  his  mother,  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  had  suffered  at  Fotheringay  ; and 
remembered  through  whose  fiat  this  dismal  trag- 
edy had  come  about.  He  hints  that  perhaps  the 
funeral  services  had  better  not  tarry  for  his  com- 
ing ; — writes  that  he  would  be  glad  of  the  crown 
jewels  (which  they  do  not  send,  however)  for  the 
new  Queen’s  wearing. 

Then  he  sets  off  at  leisure ; travels  at  leisure ; 
receiving  deputations  at  leisure,  and  all  manner 
of  prostrations  ; stopping  at  Berwick  ; stopping  at 
Belvoir  Castle ; stopping  at  York ; stopping  wher- 
ever was  good  eating  or  lodging  or  hunting ; flat- 
terers coming  in  shoals  to  be  knighted  by  him ; 
even  the  great  Bacon,  wanting  to  be  Sir  Francised 
— as  he  was  presently  : and  I am  afraid  the  poets 
of  the  time  might  have  appeared,  if  they  had  pos- 
sessed the  wherewithal  to  make  the  journey,  and 
were  as  hopeful  of  fat  things. 


10 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


Curiously  enough,  the  King  is  grandly  enter- 
tained in  Huntingdonshire  by  one  Oliver  Crom- 
well, to  whom  James  takes  a gTeat  liking ; not,  of 
course,  the  great  Cromwell ; but  this  was  the  uncle 
and  the  godfather  of  the  famous  Oliver,  who  was  to 
be  chief  instrument  in  bringing  James’  royal  son, 
Charles,  to  the  scaffold.  Thence  the  King  goes  for 
four  or  five  days  of  princely  entertainment  to  Theo- 
balds, a magnificent  seat  of  old  Burleigh’s,  where 
Elizabeth  had  gone  often ; and  where  his  son,  Ce- 
cil, now  plies  the  King  with  flatteries,  and  poisons 
his  mind  perhaps  against  Ealeigh  — for  whom  Ce- 
cil has  no  liking  ; — perhaps  representing  that  Kal- 
eigh,  being  in  Parliament  at  the  time,  might  have 
stayed  the  execution  of  Queen  Mary,  if  he  had 
chosen.  The  King  is  dehghted  with  Theobalds  ; so 
fai*  delighted  that  a few  years  after  he  exchanges  for 
it  his  royal  home  of  Hatfield  House,  which  magnifi- 
cent place  is  still  held  by  a descendant  of  Cecil,  in 
the  person  of  the  present  Earl  of  Salisbury. 

That  place  of  Theobalds  became  afterward  a pet 
home  of  the  King ; he  made  great  gardens  there, 
stocked  vrith  all  manner  of  trees  and  fruits  : every 
great  stranger  in  England  must  needs  go  to  see 


WALTER  RALEIGH, 


II 


the  curious  knots  and  mazes  of  flowers,  and  the 
vineries  and  shrubbery ; but  the  palace  and  gar- 
dens are  now  gone.  At  last  King  Jamie  gets  to 
London,  quartering  at  the  Charter-house — where  is 
now  a school  and  a home  of  worn-out  old  pension- 
ers (dear  old  Colonel  Newcome  died  there !)  within 
gunshot  of  the  great  markets  by  Smithfield  ; — and 
James  is  as  vain  as  a boy  of  sleeping  and  lording 
it,  at  last,  in  a great  capital  of  two  realms  that  call 
him  master. 

Walter  Raleigh. 

I said  that  his  mind  had  been  poisoned  against 
Ealeigh  ; ^ that  poison  begins  speedily  to  work. 
There  are  only  too  many  at  the  King’s  elbow  who 
are  jealous  of  the  grave  and  courtly  gentleman, 
now  just  turned  of  fifty,  and  who  has  packed 
into  those  years  so  much  of  high  adventure  ; who 
has  written  brave  poems ; who  has  fought  gallant- 
ly and  on  many  fields ; who  has  voyaged  widely 
in  Southern  and  Western  seas ; who  has  made 
discovery  of  the  Guianas ; who  has,  on  a time,  be- 
friended Spenser,  and  was  mate-fellow  with  the 


Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  b.  1553  ; executed  1618. 


12 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


gallant  Sidney;  who  was  a favorite  of  the  great 
Queen ; and  whose  fine  speech,  and  lordly  bearing, 
and  princely  dress  made  him  envied  everywhere, 
and  hated  by  less  successful  courtiers.  Possibly, 
too,  Ealeigh  had  made  unsafe  speeches  about  the 
chances  of  other  succession  to  the  throne.  Surely 
he  who  wore  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve,  and  loved 
brave  deeds,  could  have  no  admiration  for  the 
poltroon  of  a King  who  had  gone  a hunting  when 
the  stains  upon  the  scaffold  on  which  his  mother 
suffered  were  hardly  dry.  So  it  happened  that  Sir 
Walter  Ealeigh  was  accused  of  conspiring  for  the 
dethronement  of  the  new  King,  and  was  brought  to 
trial,  with  Cobham  and  others.  The  street  people 
jeered  at  him  as  he  passed,  for  he  was  not  popular  ; 
he  had  borne  himself  so  proudly  with  his  exploits, 
and  gold,  and  his  eagle  eye.  But  he  made  so  noble 
a defence  — so  full  — so  clear — so  eloquent  — so  im- 
passioned, that  the  same  street  people  cheered  him 
as  he  passed  out  of  court  — but  not  to  freedom. 
The  sentence  was  death  : the  King,  however,  feared 
to  put  it  to  immediate  execution.  There  was  a 
show,  indeed,  of  a scaffold,  and  the  order  issued. 
Cobham  and  Gray  were  haled  out,  and  given  last 


WALTER  RALEIGH. 


13 


talks  with  an  officiating  priest,  when  the  King  or- 
dered stay  of  proceedings  : he  loved  such  mum- 
mery. Kaleigh  went  to  the  Tower,  where  for  thir- 
teen years  he  lay  a prisoner  ; and  they  show  now 
in  the  Tower  of  London  the  vaulted  chamber  that 
was  his  reputed  (but  doubtful)  home,  where  he 
compiled,  in  conjunction  with  some  outside  friends 
— Ben  Jonson  among  the  rest  — that  ponderous 
History  of  the  World,  which  is  a great  reservoir 
of  facts,  stated  with  all  grace  and  dignity,  but 
which,  like  a great  many  heavy,  excellent  books,  is 
never  read.  The  matter-of-fact  young  man  remem- 
bers that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  first  brought  potatoes 
and  (possibly)  tobacco  into  England ; but  forgets 
his  ponderous  History. 

I may  as  well  finish  his  story  here  and  now, 
though  I must  jump  forward  thirteen  and  more 
years  to  accomplish  it.  At  the  end  of  that  time  the 
King’s  exchequer  being  low  (as  it  nearly  always 
was),  and  there  being  rumors  afloat  of  possible  gold 
findings  in  Raleigh’s  rich  country  of  Guiana,  the  old 
knight,  now  in  his  sixty-seventh  year,  felt  the  spirit 
of  adventure  stirred  in  him  by  the  west  wind  that 
crept  through  the  gratings  of  his  prison  bringing 


14  LANDS,  LETTERS,  (Sr»  KINGS, 

tropical  odors ; and  he  volunteered  to  equip  a fleet 
in  company  with  friends,  and  with  the  King’s  per- 
mission to  go  in  quest  of  mines,  to  which  he 
believed,  or  professed  to  believe,  he  had  the  clew. 
The  permission  was  reluctantly  granted  ; and  poor 
Lady  Raleigh  sold  her  estate,  as  well  as  their 
beloved  country  home  of  Sherborne  (in  Dorset) 
to  vest  in  the  new  enterprise. 

But  the  fates  were  against  it : winds  blew  the 
ships  astray ; tempests  beat  upon  them  ; mutinies 
threatened  ; and  in  Guiana,  at  last,  there  came  dis- 
astrous fights  with  the  Spaniards. 

Keymis,  the  second  in  command,  and  an  old 
friend  of  Raleigh’s,  being  reproached  by  this  latter 
in  a moment  of  frenzy,  withdraws  and  shoots  him- 
self ; Raleigh’s  own  son,  too,  is  sacrificed,  and  the 
crippled  squadron  sets  out  homeward,  with  no  gold, 
and  shattered  ships  and  maddened  crews.  Storm 
overtakes  them  ; there  is  mutiny  ; there  is  wreck  ; 
only  a few  forlorn  and  battered  hulks  bring  back 
this  disheartened  knight.  He  lands  in  his  old 
home  of  Devon  — is  warned  to  flee  the  wrath  that 
will  fall  upon  him  in  London  ; but  as  of  old  he  lifts 
his  gray  head  proudly,  and  pushes  for  the  capital 


RALEIGH^ S DEATH, 


15 


to  meet  his  accusers.  Arrived  there,  he  is  made  to 
know  by  those  strong  at  court  that  there  is  no 
hope,  for  he  has  brought  no  gold ; and  yielding  to 
friendly  entreaties  he  makes  a final  effort  at  escape. 
He  does  outwit  his  immediate  guards  and  takes  to 
a little  wherry  that  bears  him  down  the  Thames  : a 
half-day  more  and  he  would  have  taken  wings  for 
France.  But  the  sleuth-hounds  are  on  his  track ; 
he  is  seized,  imprisoned,  and  in  virtue  of  his  old 
sentence  — the  cold-hearted  Bacon  making  the  law 
for  it  — is  brought  to  the  block. 

He  walks  to  the  scaffold  with  serene  dignity  — 
greets  old  friends  cheerfully  — dies  cheerfully,  and 
so  enters  on  the  pilgrimage  he  had  set  forth  in  his 
cumbrous  verse : — 

“There  the  blessed  paths  we’ll  travel, 

Strow’d  with  rubies  thick  as  gravel ; 

Ceilings  of  diamonds,  sapphire  floors, 

High  walls  of  coral  and  pearly  bowers. 

From  thence  to  Heaven’s  bribeless  hall, 

Where  no  corrupted  voices  brawl ; 

No  conscience  molten  into  gold, 

No  forg’d  accuser  bought  or  sold, 

No  cause  deferr’d,  no  vain-spent  Journey, 

For  there  Christ  is  the  King’s  Attorney, 

Who  pleads  for  all  without  degrees, 


i6 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


And  He  liatli  angels,  but  no  fees. 

And  when  the  grand  twelve-million  jury 
Of  our  sins,  with  direful  fury, 

Against  our  souls  black  verdicts  give, 

Christ  pleads  his  death  and  then  we  live.” 

Again  to  his  wife,  in  a last  letter  from  his  prison, 
he  writes : — 

“You  shall  receive,  my  dear  wife,  my  last  words  in  these 
my  last  lines:  my  love  I send  you,  that  you  may  keep  when 
I am  dead ; and  my  counsel,  that  you  may  remember 
when  I am  no  more.  I would  not  with  my  will,  present  you 
sorrows,  my  dear  Bess  : let  them  go  to  the  grave  with  me 
and  be  buried  in  the  dust.  And  seeing  that  it  is  not  the  will 
of  God  that  I shall  meet  you  any  more,  bear  my  destruction 
patiently,  and  with  a heart  like  yourself. 

“I  beseech  you  for  the  love  that  you  bear  me  living,  that 
you  do  not  hide  yourself  many  days  ; but,  by  your  labors 
seek  to  help  my  miserable  fortunes,  and  the  rights  of  your 
poor  child.  Your  mourning  cannot  avail  me,  that  am  but 
dust.  I sued  for  my  life,  but,  God  knows,  it  was  for  you  and 
yours  that  I desired  it ; for,  know  it,  my  dear  wife,  your 
child  is  the  child  of  a true  man,  who  in  his  own  respect,  de- 
spiseth  Death  and  his  misshapen  and  ugly  forms.  I cannot 
write  much  (God  knows  how  hardly  I steal  this  time  when 
all  sleep),  and  it  is  also  time  for  me  to  separate  my  thoughts 
from  the  world.  Beg  my  dead  body,  which  living  was  de- 
nied you,  and  either  lay  it  in  Sherborne  or  Exeter  church, 
by  my  father  and  mother. 

“My  dear  wife,  farewell;  bless  my  boy;  pray  for  me; 
and  let  my  true  God  hold  you  both  in  his  arms.” 


WALTER  RALEIGH. 


17 


It  is  not  as  a literary  man  proper  that  I have 
spoken  of  Ealeigh ; the  poems  that  he  wrote  were 
very  few,  nor  were  they  overfine ; but  they  did  have 
the  glimmer  in  them  of  his  great  courage  and  of  his 
clear  thought.  They  were  never  collected  in  book 
shape  in  his  own  day,  nor,  indeed,  till  long  after  he 
had  gone : they  were  only  occasional  pieces,*  coming 
to  the  light  fitfully  under  stress  of  mind  — a trail  of 
fire-sparks,  as  we  may  say,  flying  off  from  under 
the  trip-hammer  of  royal  wrath  or  of  desperate 
fortunes. 

Even  his  History  was  due  to  his  captivity;  his 
enthusiasms,  when  he  lived  them  in  freedom,  were 
too  sharp  and  quick  for  words.  They  spent  them- 
selves in  the  blaze  of  battles  — in  breasting  stormy 
seas  that  washed  shores  where  southern  cypresses 
grew,  and  golden  promises  opened  with  every  sun- 
rise. 


* Unless  we  except  Tlie  Ocean  to  Cynthia^  piquant  frag- 
ments of  wliich  exist,  extending  to  some  live  hundred  lines  ; 
the  poem,  by  the  estimate  of  Mr.  Gosse,  may  have  reached 
in  its  entirety  a length  of  ten  thousand  lines.  See  Atlie- 
nmum  for  January  2,  1886  ; also,  Raleigh  (pp.  44-48)  by 
Edmund  Gosse.  London,  1886. 

II.— 2 


1 8 LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

And  when  I consider  his  busy  and  brilliant  and 
perturbed  life,  with  its  wonderful  adventures,  its 
strange  friendships,  its  toils,  its  quiet  hours  with 
Spenser  upon  the  Mulla  shore,  its  other  hours 
amidst  the  jungles  of  the  Orinoco,  its  lawless  gal- 
lantries in  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  its  booty  snatched 
from  Spanish  galleons  he  has  set  ablaze,  its  perils, 
its  long  captivities  — it  is  the  life  itself  that  seems 
to  me  a great  Elizabethan  epic,  with  all  its  fires,  its 
mated  couples  of  rhythmic  sentiment,  its  poetic 
splendors,  its  shortened  beat  and  broken  pauses  and 
blind  turns,  and  its  noble  climacteric  in  a bloody 
death  that  is  without  shame  and  full  of  the  largest 
pathos. 

When  you  read  Charles  Kingsley’s  story  of  West-^ 
ward,  Ho  ! (which  you  surely  should  read,  as  well  as 
such  other  matter  as  the  same  author  has  written 
relating  to  Ealeigh)  you  will  get  a live  glimpse  of 
this  noble  knight  of  letters,  and  of  those  other 
brave  and  adventurous  sailors  of  Devonshire,  who 
in  those  times  took  the  keels  of  Plymouth  over 
great  wastes  of  water.  Kingsley  writes  of  the 
heroes  of  his  native  Devon,  in  the  true  Elizabethan 
humor  — putting  fiery  love  and  life  into  his  writ- 


FORTUNES  OF  NIGEL. 


19 


ing ; the  roar  of  Atlantic  gales  breaks  into  his 
pages,  and  they  show,  up  and  down,  splashes  of 
storm-driven  brine. 

Nigel  and  Harrison. 

In  going  back  now  to  the  earlier  years  of  King 
James’  reign,  I shall  make  no  apology  for  calling 
attention  to  that  engaging  old  story  of  the  Fortunes 
of  Nigel.  I know  it  is  the  fashion  with  many  of  the 
astute  critics  of  the  day  to  pick  flaws  in  Sir  Walter, 
and  to  expatiate  on  his  blunders  and  shortcomings  ; 
nevertheless,  I do  not  think  my  readers  can  do  bet- 
ter— in  aiming  to  acquaint  themselves  with  this 
epoch  of  English  history  — than  to  read  over  again 
Scott’s  representation  of  the  personality  and  the 
surroundings  of  the  pedant  King.  There  may  be 
errors  in  minor  dates,  errors  of  detail ; but  the 
larger  truths  respecting  the  awkwardness  and  the  pe- 
dantries of  the  first  Stuart  King,  and  respecting  the 
Scotch  adventurers  who  hung  pressingly  upon  his 
skirts,  and  the  lawless  street  scenes  which  in  those 
days  did  really  disturb  the  quietude  of  the  great 
metropolis,  are  pictured  with  a liveliness  which  will 


20 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


make  them  unforgetable.  Macaulay  says  that  out 
of  the  gleanings  left  by  historic  harvesters  Scott  has 
made  ‘‘a  history  scarce  less  valuable  than  theirs.” 
Nor  do  I think  there  is  in  the  Fortunes  of  Nigel  a de- 
viation from  the  truth  (of  which  many  must  be  ad- 
mitted) so  extravagant  and  misleading  as  Mr.  Free- 
man’s averment,  that  in  Imnhoe  “ there  is  a mistake 
in  every  line.”  There  are  small  truths  and  large 
truths;  and  the  competent  artist  knows  which  to 
seize  upon.  Titian  committed  some  fearful  ana- 
chronisms, and  put  Venetian  stuffs  upon  Judean 
women ; Balthasar  Denner,  on  the  other  hand, 
painted  with  minute  truthfulness  every  stubby  hair 
in  a man’s  beard,  and  no  tailor  could  have  ex- 
cepted to  his  button-holes  : nobody  knows  Denner  ; 
Titian  reigns. 

Among  those  whom  Scott  placed  under  tribute 
for  much  of  his  local  coloring  was  a gossipy,  kind- 
ly clergyman,  William  Harrison  * by  name,  who  was 


♦William  Harrison,  b.  1534;  d.  1593.  It  is  interesting  to 
know  that  much  has  come  to  light  respecting  the  personal 
history  of  William  Harrison,  through  the  investigations  of 
that  indefatigable  American  genealogist,  the  late  Colonel 
J.  L.  Chester. 


WILLIAM  HARRISON. 


21 


born  close  by  Bow  Lane,  in  London,  who  studied 
at  Westminster,  at  Oxford,  and  Cambridge  (as  he 
himself  tells  us),  and  who  had  a parish  in  Kadwiii- 
ter,  on  the  northern  borders  of  Essex ; who  came 
to  be  a canon,  finally,  at  Windsor ; and  who  died 
ten  years  before  James  came  to  power.  He  tells 
us,  in  a delightfully  quaint  way,  of  all  the  simples 
which  he  grew  in  his  little  garden — of  the  manner 
in  which  country  houses  were  builded,  and  their 
walls  white-washed  — of  the  open  chimney  vents, 
and  the  smoke-burnished  rafters.  ‘‘And  yet  see 
the  change,”  he  says,  “for  when  our  houses  were 
builded  of  willow,  then  had  we  oken  men ; but  now 
that  our  houses  are  come  to  be  made  of  oke,  our 
men  are  not  onlie  become  willow,  but  a great 
manie,  through  Persian  delicacie  crept  in  among 
us,  altogether  of  straw,  which  is  a sore  alteration.” 

When  the  old  parson  gets  upon  the  subject  of 
dress  he  waxes  eloquent ; nor  was  he  without  full- 
est opportunities  for  observation,  havmg  been  for 
much  time  private  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Cobham. 

“Oh,  how  much  cost,’’  he  says,  “is  bestowed  now-a-daies 
upon  our  bodies,  and  how  little  upon  our  soules ! How  many 
sutes  of  apparel  hath  the  one,  and  how  little  furniture  hath 


22 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


the  other ! How  curious,  how  nice  are  the  men  and  women, 
and  how  hardlie  can  the  tailer  please  them  in  making  things 
fit  for  their  bodies.  How  many  times  must  they  be  sent 
back  again e to  him  that  made  it.  I will  say  nothing  of  our 
heads,  which  sometimes  are  polled,  sometimes  curled,  or  suf- 
fered to  grow  at  length  like  woman’s  locks,  manie  times  cut 
off  above  or  under  the  ears,  round,  as  by  a wooden  dish. 
Neither  will  I meddle  with  our  varieties  of  beards,  of  which 
some  are  shaven  from  the  chin  like  those  of  the  Turks,  not 
a few  cut  like  to  the  beard  of  Marquess  Otto ; some  made 
round,  like  a rubbing  brush,  others  with  a pique  devant  (O 
fine  fashion ! ). 

“In  women,  too,  it  is  much  to  be  lamented  that  they  doo 
now  far  exceed  the  lightness  of  our  men,  and  such  star- 
ing attire  as  in  times  past  was  supposed  meet  for  none  but 
light  housewives  onelie,  is  now  become  an  habit  for  chaste 
and  sober  matrons.  What  should  I say  of  their  doublets  with 
pendant  pieces  on  the  brest,  full  of  jags  and  cuts,  and  sleeves 
of  sundrie  colors.  I have  met  with  some  of  these  trulles  in 
London,  so  disguised,  that  it  hath  passed  my  skill  to  discerne 
whether  they  were  men  or  women.” 

If  this  discerning  old  gentleman  had  shot  his 
quill  along  our  sidewalks,  I think  it  would  have 
punctured  a good  deal  of  bloat,  and  stirred  up  no 
little  bustle.  The  King  himself  had  a great  liking 
for  fine  dress  in  others,  though  he  was  himself  a 
sloven.  Lord  Howard,  a courtier,  writes  to  a 
friend  who  is  hopeful  of  preferment : 


A LONDON  BRIDE, 


23 


**  I would  wish  you  to  be  well  trimmed ; get  a new  Jerkin 
well  bordered,  and  not  too  short : the  King  liketh  it  flowing. 
Your  ruff  should  be  well  stiffened  and  bushy.  The  King  is 
nicely  heedful  of  such  points.  Eighteen  servants  were  lately 
discharged,  and  many  more  will  be  discarded  who  are  not  to 
his  liking  in  these  matters.”  And  again,  speaking  of  a fa- 
vorite, he  says  : — “Carr  hath  changed  his  tailors,  and  tire- 
men  many  times,  and  all  to  please  the  Prince,  who  laugheth 
at  the  long-grown  fashion  of  our  young  courtiers,  and  wish- 
eth  for  change  everie  day. 

A London  Bride, 

One  other  little  bit  of  high  light  upon  the  every- 
day ways  of  London  living,  in  the  early  years  of 
King  James,  we  are  tempted  to  give.  It  comes  out 
in  the  private  letter  of  a new-married  lady,  who  was 
daughter  and  heiress  of  that  enormously  rich  mer- 
chant, Sir  John  Spencer,  who  was  Lord  Mayor  of 
London  ; and  who,  in  Elizabeth’s  time  (as  well  as 
James’),  lived  in  Crosby  Hall,  still  standing  in  the 
thick  of  London  city,  near  to  where  Thread  and 
Needle  Street,  at  its  eastern  end,  abuts  upon  Bish- 
opsgate.  Every  voyaging  American  should  go  to 
see  this  best  type  of  domestic  architecture  of  the 
fifteenth  century  now  existing  in  London  ; and  it 
will  quicken  his  interest  in  the  picturesque  old  pile 


24 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


to  know  that  Eichard  HI.,  while  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
passed  some  critical  days  and  nights  there,  and 
that  for  some  years  it  was  the  home  of  Sir  Thomas 
More.  The  Spencer  heiress,  however  — of  whom 
we  began  to  make  mention  — brightened  its  inte- 
rior at  a later  day  ; there  were  many  suitors  for 
her  hand  ; among  them  a son  of  Lord  Compton  — 
not  looked  upon  with  favor  by  the  rich  merchant  — 
and  concealing  his  advances  under  the  disguise  of 
a baker's  boy,  through  which  he  came  to  many 
stolen  interviews,  and  at  last  (as  tradition  tells) 
was  successful  enough  to  trundle  away  the  heiress, 
covertly,  in  his  baker’s  barrow.  Through  the  good 
offices  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  stood  god-mother 
to  the  first  child,  difficulties  between  father  and 
son-in-law  were  healed  ; and  when,  later,  by  the 
death  of  Sir  John  Spencer,  the  bridegroom  was 
assured  of  the  enormous  wealth  inherited  by  his 
bride,  he  was  — poor  man  — nearly  crazed. 

Among  the  curative  processes  for  his  relief  may 
be  reckoned  the  letter  from  his  wife  to  which  I have 
made  allusion,  and  which  runs  thus  : — 

“ My  sweet  Life,  I pray  and  beseech  you  to  grant  me  the 
gum  of  £2,600  [equivalent  to  some  $30,000  now]  quarterly  ; 


A BRIBERS  PIN-MONEY. 


25 


also,  besides,  £600  quarterly  for  charities,  of  which  I will 
give  no  account.  Also,  I would  have  3 horses  for  my  own 
saddle,  that  none  shall  dare  to  lend  or  borrow.  Also  ; 2 gen- 
tlewomen (lest  one  should  be  sick)  — seeing  it  is  an  inde- 
cent thing  for  a gentlewoman  to  stand  mumping  alone, 
when  God  hath  blessed  the  Lord  and  Lady  with  a great 
Estate : Also,  when  I ride,  a hunting  or  a hawking,  I would 
have  them  attend : so,  for  either  of  those  said  women  there 
must  be  a horse. 

“Also,  I would  have  6 or  8 gentlemen  ; I will  have  my 
two  coaches — one  lined  with  velvet  to  myself,  with  four 
very  fair  horses,  and  a coach  for  my  women  lined  with 
cloth,  and  laced  with  gold ; — otherwise  with  scarlet  and 
laced  with  silver,  with  four  good  horses.  Thereafter,  my 
desire  is  that  you  defray  all  charges  for  me,  and  beside  my 
allowance,  I would  have  20  gowns  of  apparel  a year  — six  of 
them  excellent  good  ones.  Also,  I would  have  to  put  in  my 
purse  £2,000  or  so  — you  to  pay  my  debts.  And  seeing  I 
have  been  so  reasonable,  I pray  you  do  find  my  children  ap- 
parel, and  their  schooling,  and  all  my  servants,  men  and 
women,  with  wages.  Also,  I must  have  £6,000  to  buy  me 
jewels,  and  £4,000  to  buy  me  a gold  chain.  Also,  my  desire 
is,  that  you  would  pay  your  debts  — build  up  Ashley  House, 
and  lend  no  money  as  you  love  God  ! When  you  be  an  Earl 
[as  he  was  afterward  in  Charles  I.  ’s  time]  I pray  you  to  allow 
£2,000  more  than  I now  desire  and  double  attendance.” 


Happy  husband ! 


26 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Ben  Jonson  again. 

We  must  not  forget  our  literature ; and  what 
has  become  of  our  friend  Ben  Jonson  in  these 
times  ? He  is  hearty  and  thriving ; he  has  written 
gratulatory  and  fulsome  verses  to  the  new  sover- 
eign. He  is  better  placed  with  James  than  even 
with  Elizabeth.  If  his  tragedy  of  ‘‘Sejanus”  has 
not  found  a great  success,  he  has  more  than  made 
up  the  failing  by  the  brilliant  masques  he  has  writ- 
ten. The  pedantic  King  loves  their  pretty  show  of 
classicism,  which  he  can  interpret  better  than  his 
courtiers.  He  battens,  too,  upon  the  flatteiy  that 
is  strown  with  a lavish  hand : — 

“ Never  came  man  more  longed  for,  more  desired. 

And  being  come,  more  reverenced,  lov’d,  admired.”  * 

This  is  the  strain ; no  wonder  that  the  poet  comes 
by  pension ; no  wonder  he  has  “ commands,”  with 
goodly  fees,  to  all  the  fetes  in  the  royal  honor.  Yet 
he  is  too  strong  and  robust  and  learned  to  be  called 
a mere  sycophant.  The  more  I read  of  the  liter- 


* Speeches  of  Graiiilation  on  King’s  Entertainment. 


BEN  JONSON  27 

ary  history  of  those  days  the  more  impressed  1 am 
by  the  predominance  of  Ben  Jonson ; — a great, 
careless,  hard-living,  hard-drinking,  not  ill-natured 
literary  monarch.  His  strength  is  evidenced  by  the 
deference  shown  him — by  his  versatility ; now  some 
musical  masque  sparkling  with  little  dainty  bits 
which  a sentimental  miss  might  copy  in  her  al- 
bum or  chant  in  her  boudoir  ; and  this,  matched  or 
followed  by  some  labored  drama  full  of  classic 
knowledge,  full  of  largest  wordcraft,  snapping  with 
fire-crackers  of  wit,  loaded  with  ponderous  nuggets 
of  strong  sense,  and  the  whole  capped  and  booted 
with  prologue  and  epilogue  where  poetic  graces 
shine  through  proudest  averments  of  indifference 
— of  scorn  of  applause  ~ of  audacious  self-suffi- 
ciency. 

It  was  some  fifteen  years  after  James’  coming 
to  power  that  Ben  Jonson  made  his  memorable 
Scotch  journey  — perhaps  out  of  respect  for  his 
forebears,  who  had  gone,  two  generations  before, 
out  of  Annandale — perhaps  out  of  some  lighter 
caprice.  In  any  event  it  would  have  been  only  a 
commonplace  foot-journey  of  a middle-aged  man, 
well  known  over  all  Britain  as  poet  and  dramatist, 


28 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


with  no  special  record  of  its  own,  except  for  a visit 
of  a fortnight  which  he  made,  in  the  north  country, 
to  Drummond  of  Hawthornden : — this  made  it 
memorable.  For  this  Drummond  was  a note- 
taker;  he  was  a smooth  but  not  strong  poet;  was 
something  proud  of  his  Scotch  lairdship ; lived  in  a 
beautiful  home  seated  upon  a crag  that  lifts  above 
the  beautiful  valley  of  Eskdale  ; its  picturesque  ir- 
regularities of  tower  and  turret  are  still  very  charm- 
ing, and  Eskdale  is  charming  with  its  wooded  walks, 
cliffs,  pools,  and  bridges  ; Koslin  Castle  is  near  by, 
and  Koslin  Chapel,  and  so  is  Dalkeith. 

The  tourist  of  our  time  can  pass  no  pleasanter 
summer’s  day  than  in  loiterings  there  and  there- 
about. Echoes  of  Scott’s  border  minstrelsy  beat 
from  bank  to  bank.  Poet  Drummond  was  proud  to 
have  poet  Jonson  as  a guest,  and  hospitably  j)lied 
him  with  strong  waters  ; ” under  the  effusion  Jon- 
son dilated,  and  Drummond,  eagerly  attentive, 
made  notes.  These  jottings  down,  which  were  not 
voluminous,  and  which  were  not  published  until 
after  both  parties  were  in  their  graves,  have  been 
subject  of  much  and  bitter  discussion,  and  relate  to 
topics  lying  widely  apart.  There  is  talk  of  Petrarch 


AN  ITALIAN  REPORTER. 


29 


and  of  Queen  Elizabeth  — of  Marston  and  of  Over- 
bury— of  Drayton  and  Donne  — of  Shakespeare 
(all  too  little)  — of  King  James  and  Petronius  — 
of  Jonson’s  “ shrew  of  a wife  ” and  of  Sir  Francis 
Bacon ; and  there  are  more  or  less  authentic  stories 
of  Spenser  and  Ealeigh  and  Sidney.  Throughout 
we  find  the  burly  British  poet  very  aggressive,  very 
outspoken,  very  penetrative  and  fearless : and  we 
find  his  Scotch  interviewer  a little  overawed  by  the 
other’s  audacities,  and  not  a little  resentful  of  his 
advice  to  him  — to  study  Quintillian. 


An  Italian  Reporter. 

It  was  in  the  very  year  of  Ben  Jonson’s  return 
from  the  north  that  a masque  of  his — ‘‘Pleasure  is 
Keconciled  to  Virtue  ” — was  represented  at  White- 
hall ; and  it  so  happens  that  we  have  a lively  glimpse 
of  this  representation  from  the  note-book  of  an 
Italian  gentleman  who  was  chaplain  to  Pietro  Con- 
tarini,  then  ambassador  from  Venice,  and  who  was 
living  at  Sir  Pindar’s  home  in  Bishopsgate  Street 
(a  locality  still  kept  in  mind  by  a little  tavern  now 
standing  thereabout  called  “ Sir  Pindar’s  Head  ”). 


30 


LAA^DS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


This  report  of  Busino,  the  Italian  gentleman  of 
whom  I spoke,  about  his  life  in  London,  was  buried 
in  the  archives  of  Venice,  until  unearthed  about 
twenty  years  since  by  an  exploring  Englishman.* 
So  it  happens,  that  in  this  old  Venetian  document 
we  seem  to  look  directly  through  those  foreign  eyes, 
closed  for  two  hundred  and  seventy  years,  upon  the 
play  at  Whitehall. 

“ For  two  hours,”  he  says,  ‘‘  we  were  forced  to  wait  in  the 
Venetian  box,  very  hot  and  very  crowded.  Then  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  came  up,  and  wanted  to  add  another,  who  was 
a greasy  Spaniard.” 

This  puts  Busino  in  an  ill  humor  (there  was  no 
good-will  between  Italy  and  Spain  in  those  days) ; 
but  he  admires  the  women — “all  so  many  queens.” 

“There  were  some  very  lovely  faces,  and  at  every  mo- 
ment my  companions  kept  exclaiming  : ‘ Oh,  do  look  at  this 
one  ! ’ ‘ Oh,  do  see  that  other ! * ‘ Whose  wife  is  this  ? ’ ‘ And 
that  pretty  one  near  her,  whose  daughter  is  she  ? ’ [Curious 
people  !]  Then  the  King  came  in  and  took  the  ambassador 
to  his  royal  box,  directly  opposite  the  stage,  and  the  play 
began  at  10  P.M.” 

There  was  Bacchus  on  a car,  followed  by  Silenus 
on  a barrel,  and  twelve  wicker-flasks  representing 


* Rawdon  Brown. 


A MASQUE  AT  WHITEHALL, 


31 


very  lively  beer  bottles,  who  performed  numerous 
antics ; then  a moving  Mount  Atlas,  as  big  as  the 
stage  would  permit;  scores  of  classic  affectations 
and  astonishing  mythologic  mechanism;  and  at 
last,  with  a great  bevy  of  pages,  twelve  cavaliers  in 
masques  — the  Prince  Charles  (afterward  Charles  1.) 
being  chief  of  the  revellers. 

“These  aU  choose  partners  and  dance  every  kind  of 
dance  — every  cavalier  selecting  his  lady.  After  an  hour  or 
two  of  this,  they,  being  tired,  began  to  flag ; ” whereat  — 
says  the  chaplain — “the  choleric  King  James  got  impatient 
and  shouted  out  from  his  box,  * Why  don’t  they  dance  ? 
What  did  you  make  me  come  here  for  ? Devil  take  you  all 
— dance ! ’ ” 

What  a light  this  little  touch  of  the  old  gentle- 
man’s choleric  spirit  throws  upon  the  court  man- 
ners of  that  time ! 

Then  Buckingham,  the  favorite,  whom  Scott  in- 
troduces in  Higel  as  Steenie  — comes  forward  to 
placate  the  King,  and  cuts  a score  of  lofty  capers 
with  so  much  grace  and  agility  as  not  only  to  quiet 
the  wrathy  monarch  but  to  delight  everybody. 
Afterward  comes  the  banquet,  at  which  his  most  sa- 
cred majesty  gets  tipsy,  and  amid  a general  smash- 
ing of  Venetian  glass,  continues  the  Italian  gentle- 


32 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


man,  went  home,  very  tired,  at  two  o’clock  in 
the  morning.” 

Ah,  if  we  could  only  unearth  some  good  old 
play-going  chaplain’s  account  of  how  Shakespeare 
appeared  — of  his  dress  — of  his  voice  — and  with 
what  unction  of  manner  he  set  before  the  little 
audience  at  the  Globe,  or  Blackfriars,  his  part  of 
Old  Adam  (which  there  is  reason  to  believe  he 
took),  in  his  own  delightful  play  of  ‘‘  As  You  Like 
It.”  What  would  we  not  give  to  know  the  very 
attitude,  and  the  wonderful  pity  in  his  look,  with 
which  he  spoke  to  his  young  master,  Orlando  : — 

“ Oh,  my  sweet  master,  what  make  you  here  ? 

Why  are  you  virtuous  ? Why  do  people  love  you  ? 

Oh,  what  a world  is  this,  when  what  is  comely 
Envenoms  him,  that  bears  it ! ” 


Shakespeare  and  the  Globe, 

Neither  our  Italian  friend,  however,  nor  Ben 
Jonson  have  given  us  any  such  glimpse  as  we 
would  like  to  have  of  that  keen-witted  Warwick- 
shire actor  and  playwright  who,  in  the  early  years 
of  James’  reign,  is  living  off  and  on  in  London  ; 
having  bought,  within  a few  years  — as  the  records 


SHAKESPEARE  KING  JAMES.  33 

tell  us  — a fine  New  Place  in  Stratford,  and  has 
won  great  favor  With  that  King  Jamie,  who  with  all 
his  pedantry  knows  a good  thing  when  he  sees  it, 
or  hears  it.  Indeed,  there  is  some  warrant  for  be- 
lieving that  the  King  wrote  a commendatory  letter 
to  the  great  dramatist,  of  which  Mr.  Black,  in  our 
time,  makes  shadowy  use  in  that  Shakespearean  ro- 
mance of  his,*  you  may  have  encountered.  The 
novelist  gives  us  some  very  charming  pictures  of 
the  Warwickshire  landscape,  and  he  has  made  Miss 
Judith  Shakespeare  very  arch  and  engaging  ; but  it 
was  perilous  ground  for  any  novelist  to  venture 
upon  ; and  I think  the  author  felt  it,  and  has  shown 
a timidity  and  doubt  that  have  hampered  him ; I 
do  not  recognize  in  it  the  breezy  freedom  that  be- 
longed to  his  treatment  of  things  among  the  Heb- 
rides. But  to  return  to  “ Judith’s  father  ” — he  is 
part  proprietor  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  taking  in  lots 


* Judith  Shakespearey  bj  William  Black.  The  story  of 
the  royal  letter  appears  to  rest  mainly  on  the  evidence  of 
William  Oldys  (not  a strong  authority),  who  says  it  originated 
with  Sheffield,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  had  it  from  Sir 
William  D’Avenant.  Dr.  Drake,  however,  as  well  as  Far- 
mer, fully  accredit  the  anecdote. 

II.— 3 


34 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


of  money  (old  cronies  say)  in  that  way  ; was  hon- 
ored by  the  Queen,  too,  before  her  death,  and  had 
written  that  “ Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,*’  tradition 
says,  to  show  Queen  Bess  how  the  Fat  Falstaff 
would  carry  his  great  hulk  as  a lover. 

We  might  meet  this  Shakespeare  at  that  Mermaid 
Tavern  we  spoke  of ; but  should  look  out  for  him 
more  hopefully  about  one  of  the  playhouses.  Go- 
ing from  the  Mermaid,  supposing  we  were  putting 
up  there  in  those  days,  we  should  strike  across 
St.  Paul’s  Churchyard,  and  possibly  taking  Paul’s 
Walk,  and  so  down  Ludgate  Hill ; and  thence  on, 
bearing  southerly  to  Blackfriars ; which  locality  has 
now  its  commemoration  in  the  name  of  Playhouse 
Yard,  and  is  in  a dingy  quarter,  with  dingy  great 
warehouses  round  it.  Arrived  there  we  should 
learn,  perhaps  by  a poster  on  the  door,  that  the 
theatre  would  not  open  till  some  later  hour.  Black- 
friars* was  a private  theatre,  roofed  over  entirely 


* The  Globe  was  the  summer  theatre,  the  Blackfriars  the 
winter  theatre  — the  same  company  playing  much  at  both. 
The  hour  for  opening  in  Elizabeth’s  time  was  usually  one 
o’clock.  Dekker  {Horne  Booke^  1609)  names  three  as  the 
hour  ; and  doubtless  there  were  occasions  when  — in  the  pri- 


BLACKFRIAR^S  THEATRE. 


35 


and  lighted  with  candles ; also,  through  Elizabeth’s 
time,  opening  generally  on  Sundays  — that  be- 
ing a popular  day  — hours  being  chosen  outside  of 
prayer  or  church-time ; and  this  public  dramatic 
observance  of  Sunday  was  only  forbidden  by  ex- 
press enactment  after  James  came  to  the  throne. 
At  her  palace,  and  with  her  child-players,  Sunday 
was  always  Queen  Elizabeth’s  favorite  day. 

This  Blackfriars  was  at  only  a little  remove 
down  the  Thames  from  that  famous  Whitefriars 
region  of  which  there  is  such  melodramatic  ac- 
count in  Scott’s  story  of  where  Old  Trapbois 

comes  to  his  wild  death.  If  we  went  to  the  Globe 
Theatre,  we  should  push  on  down  to  the  river — 
near  to  a point  where  Blackfriars  Bridge  now  spans 
it  — then,  a clear  stream  free  from  all  bridges,  save 
only  London  Bridge,  which  would  have  loomed, 
with  its  piles  of  houses,  out  of  the  water  on  our 
left.  At  the  water-side  we  should  take  wherry  (fare 
only  one  penny)  and  be  sculled  over  to  Southwark, 

vate  theatres  — plays  began  after  nightfall.  Fletcher  and 
Shakespeare  were  at  the  head  of  what  was  called  the  Lord 
Chamberlain’s  Company.  By  license  of  James  1.  (1603) 
this  virtually  became  the  King’s  Company. 


36  LANDS,  LETTERS,  &-  KINGS. 


landing  at  an  open  place  — Bankside  — near  which 
was  Paris  Garden,  where  bear-baiting  was  still  car- 
ried on  with  high  kingly  approval ; and  thereabout, 
on  a spot  now  swallowed  in  a gulf  of  smoked  and 
blackened  houses  — just  about  the  locality  where  at 
a later  day  stood  Eichard  Baxter’s  Chapel,  rose  the 
octagonal  walls  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  in  which 
Mr.  Shakespeare  was  concerned  as  player  and  part 
proprietor.  There  should  be  a flag  flying  aloft  and 
people  lounging  in,  paying  their  two-pence,  their 
sixpences,  their  shillings,  or  even  their  half-crowns 
— as  they  chose  the  commoner  or  the  better 
places.  Only  the  stage  is  roofed  over;  perhaps 
also  a narrow  space  all  round  the  walls ; from  all 
otherwheres  within,  one  could  look  up  straight  into 
the  murky  sky  of  London.  There  is  apple-eating, 
nut-cracking,  and  some  vender  of  pamphlets  bawl- 
ing ‘‘Buy  a new  booke;”  such  a one  perhaps  as 
that  Home  Booke  of  Gulls — which  I told  you  of, 
written  by  Dekker — would  have  been  a favorite  for 
such  venders.  Or,  possibly  through  urgence  of  the 
Court  Chamberlain,  King  James’  Gounterhlaste  to 
Tobacco  may  be  put  on  sale  there,  to  mend  man- 
ners ; or  Joshua  Sylvester’s  little  poem  to  the  same 


GLOBE  THEATRE. 


37 


end,  entitled  Tobacco  battered  and  the  Pipes  shattered 
about  their  Eares  that  idly  idolize  so  base  and  barbar^ 
ous  a Weed^  by  a Volley  of  hot  shot,  thundered  from 
Mount  Helicon. 

“ How  juster  will  the  Heavenly  God, 

Th’  Eternal,  punish  with  infernal  rod 

In  Hell’s  dark  furnace,  with  black  fumes  to  choak 

Those  that  on  Earth  will  still  offend  in  Smoak.” 

But  hot  as  this  sort  of  shot  might  have  been,  we 
may  be  sure  that  some  fast  fellows,  the  critics  and 
CBsthetes  of  those  days,  will  have  their  place  on  the 
stage,  sprawling  there  upon  the  edge,  before  the 
actors  appear ; criticising  players  and  audience  and 
smoking  their  long  pipes ; may  be  taking  a hand 
at  cards,  and  if  very  ‘‘swell,”  tossing  the  cards  over 
to  people  in  the  pit  when  once  their  game  is  over 
— a showy  and  arrogant  largess. 

Perhaps  Ben  Jonson  will  come  swaggering  in, 
having  taken  a glass,  or  two,  very  likely,  or  even 
three,  in  the  tap-room  of  the  Tabard  Tavern  — 
the  famous  Tabard  of  Chaucer’s  tales  — which  is 
within  practicable  drinking  distance ; and  Will 
Shakespeare,  if  indeed  there,  may  greet  him  across 
two  benches  with,  “Ah,  Ben,”  and  he  — tipsily  in 


38 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


reply,  with  ‘‘Ah,  my  good  fellow.  Will.”  Those 
prim  youEg  men,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  who  are 
just  now  pluming  their  wings  for  such  dramatic 
flights  as  these  two  older  men  have  made,  may 
also  be  there.  And  the  play  will  open  with  three 
little  bursts  of  warning  music ; always  a prologue 
with  a first  representation  ; and  it  may  chance 
that  the  very  one  we  have  lighted  upon,  is  some 
special  exhibit  of  that  great  military  spectacle 
of  “Henry  V.”  which  we  know,  and  all  the 
times  between  have  known;  and  it  may  be  that 
this  Shakespeare,  being  himself  author  and  in  a 
sense  manager  of  these  boards,  may  come  forward 
to  speak  the  prologue  himself ; how  closely  we 
would  have  eyed  him,  and  listened : — 


“Pardon,  gentles  all ; 

The  flat,  unraised  spirit,  that  hath  dared 
On  this  unworthy  scaffold  to  bring  forth 
So  great  an  object : Can  this  cockpit  hold 
The  vasty  fields  of  France  ? or  may  we  cram 
Within  this  wooden  O,  the  very  casques 
That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agincourt  ? 

Piece  out  our  imperfections  with  your  thoughts, 
Into  a thousand  parts  divide  one  man  ; 

Think,  when  we  talk  of  horses,  that  you  see  them 


GLOBE  THEATRE. 


39 


Printing  their  proud  hoofs  i’  the  receiving  earth, 

For  His  your  thoughts  that  now  must  deck  our  kings, 
Carry  them  here  and  there,  jumping  o’er  times ; 
Turning  the  accomplishment  of  many  years 
Into  an  hour-glass.” 


And  then  the  play  begins  and  we  see  them  all : 
Gloucester  and  the  brave  king,  and  Bedford,  and 
Fluellen,  and  the  pretty  Kate  of  France  (by  some 
boy-player),  and  Nym,  and  Pistol,  and  Dame 
Quickly ; and  the  drums  beat,  and  the  roar  of  bat- 
tle breaks  and  rolls  away  — as  only  Shakespeare’s 
words  can  make  battles  rage ; and  the  French  Kate 
is  made  Queen,  and  so  the  end  comes. 

All  this  might  have  happened ; I have  tried  to 
offend  against  no  historic  data  of  places,  or  men,  or 
dates  in  this  summing  up.  And  from  the  doors  of 
the  Globe,  where  we  are  assailed  by  a clamor  of 
watermen  and  linkboys,  we  go  down  to  the  river’s 
edge  — scarce  a stone’s- throw  distant  — and  take 
our  wherry,  on  the  bow  of  which  a light  is  now 
flaming,  and  float  away  in  the  murky  twilight  upon 
that  great  historic  river — watching  the  red  torch- 
fires,  kindling  one  by  one  along  the  Strand  shores, 
and  catching  the  dim  outline  of  London  houses  — 


40 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


the  London  of  King  James  I.  — looming  through 
the  mists  behind  them. 

In  our  next  chapter  I shall  have  somewhat  more 
to  say  of  the  Stratford  man  — specially  of  his  per- 
sonality ; and  more  to  say  of  King  James,  and  of  his 
English  Bible. 


CHAPTER  n. 


E have  had  our  glimpse  of  the  first  (Eng- 


t t lish)  Stuart  King,  as  he  made  his  sham- 
bling way  to  the  throne  — beset  by  spoilsmen  ; we 
had  our  glimpse,  too,  of  that  haughty,  high-souled, 
unfortunate  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  whose  memory  all 
Americans  should  hold  in  honor.  We  had  our  little 
look  through  the  magic-lantern  of  Scott  at  the  toi- 
let and  the  draggled  feathers  of  the  pedant  King 
James,  and  upon  all  that  hurly-burly  of  London 
where  the  Scotch  Nigel  adventured  ; and  through 
the  gossipy  Harrison  we  set  before  ourselves  a 
great  many  quaint  figures  of  the  time.  We  saw  a 
bride  whose  silken  dresses  whisked  along  those  bal- 
usters of  Crosby  Hall,  which  brides  of  our  day  may 
touch  reverently  now ; we  followed  Ben  Jonson, 
afoot,  into  Scotland,  and  among  the  pretty  scenes 
of  Eskdale  ; and  thereafter  we  sauntered  down 


42 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Ludgate  Hill,  and  so,  by  wherry,  to  Bankside^and 
the  Globe,  where  we  paid  our  shilling,  and  passed 
the  time  o’  day  with  Ben  Jonson  ; and  saw  young 
Francis  Beaumont,  and  smelt  the  pipes  ; and  had  a 
glimpse  of  Shakespeare.  But  we  must  not,  for  this 
reason,  think  that  all  the  world  of  London  smoked, 
or  all  the  world  of  London  went  to  the  Globe  The- 
atre. 

Gosson  and  Other  Puritans. 

There  was  at  this  very  time,  living  and  preaching, 
in  the  great  city,  a certain  Stephen  Gosson* — 
well-known,  doubtless,  to  Ben  Jonson  and  his  fel- 
lows— who  had  received  a university  education, 
who  had  written  delicate  pastorals  and  other  verse, 
which  — with  many  people  — ranked  him  with 
Spenser  and  Sidney  ; who  had  written  plays  too,  but 
who,  somehow  conscience-smitten,  and  having  gone 
over  from  all  dalliance  with  the  muses  to  extrem- 
est  Puritanism,  did  thereafter  so  inveigh  against 
Poets,  Players,  Jesters,  and  such  like  Caterpillars  of 
{he  Commonwealth'' — as  he  called  them  — as  made 
him  rank,  for  fierce  invective,  with  that  Stubbes 


* Gosson  was  an  Oxford  man  ; b.  1555  : d.  1624. 


PURITANISM. 


43 


whose  onslaught  upon  the  wickedness  of  the  day  J 
cited.  He  had  called  his  discourse,  ^^pleasant  for 
Gentlemen  that  favor  Learning,  and  profitable  for  all 
that  will  follow  VertueP  He  represented  the  Puri- 
tan feeling  — which  was  growing  in  force  — in  re- 
spect to  poetry  and  the  drama ; and,  I have  no 
doubt,  regarded  Mr.  William  Shakespeare  as  one  of 
the  best  loved  and  trusted  emissaries  of  Satan. 

But  between  the  rigid  sectarians  and  those  of 
easy-going  faith  who  were  wont  to  meet  at  the  Mer- 
maid Tavern,  there  was  a third  range  of  thinking 
and  of  thinkers; — not  believing  all  poetry  and  po- 
ets Satanic,  and  yet  not  neglectful  of  the  offices  of 
Christianity.  The  King  himself  would  have  ranked 
with  these ; and  so  also  would  the  dignitaries  of 
that  English  Church  of  which  he  counted  himself, 
in  some  sense,  the  head.  It  was  in  the  first  year  of 
his  reign,  1603  — he  having  passed  a good  part  of 
the  summer  in  hunting  up  and  down  through  the 
near  counties  — partly  from  his  old  love  of  such 
things,  partly  to  be  out  of  reach  of  the  plague 
which  ravaged  London  that  year  (carrying  off  over 
thirty  thousand  people) ; it  was,  I say,  in  that  first 
year  that,  at  the  instance  of  some  good  Anglicans, 


44 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


lie  issued  a proclamation  — ^^  Touching  a meeting  f of 
the  hearing  and  for  the  determining  things  pretended 
to  he  amiss  in  the  GhurchJ^ 

Out  of  this  grew  a conference  at  Hampton  Court, 
in  January,  1604.  Twenty-five  were  called  to  that 
gathering,  of  whom  nine  were  Bishops.  On  no  one 
day  were  they  all  present ; nor  did  there  seem 
promise  of  any  great  outcome  from  this  assem- 
blage, till  one  Eainolds,  a famous  Greek  scholar  of 
Oxford,  ‘‘  moved  his  Majesty  that  there  might  be  a 
new  translation  of  the  Bible,  because  previous  ones 
were  not  answerable  altogether  to  the  truth  of  the 
Original.” 


King  James^  JBihle. 

There  was  discussion  of  this ; my  Lord  Bancroft, 
Bishop  of  London,  venturing  the  sage  remark  that 
if  every  man’s  humor  should  be  followed,  there 
would  be  no  end  of  translating.  In  the  course  of 
the  talk  we  may  well  believe  that  King  James  nod- 
ded approval  of  anything  that  would  flatter  his 
kingly  vanities,  and  shook  his  big  unkempt  head  at 
what  would  make  call  for  a loosening  of  his  purse- 
stringa  But  out  of  this  slumberous  conference. 


KING  JAMES'  BIBLE.  45 

and  out  of  these  initial  steps,  did  come  the  script- 
Ural  revision ; and  did  come  that  noble  monument 
of  the  English  language,  and  of  the  Christian  faith, 
sometimes  called  “ King  James’  Bible,”  though  — 
for  anything  that  the  old  gentleman  had  to  do  vi- 
tally or  specifically  with  the  revision — it  might  as 
well  have  been  called  the  Bible  of  King  James’  tai- 
lor, or  the  Bible  of  King  James’  cat. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  for  the  King,  that  he 
did  press  for  a prompt  completion  of  the  work,  and 
that  “ it  should  be  done  by  the  best  learned  in  both 
universities.”  Indeed,  if  the  final  dedication  of  the 
translators  to  the  most  High,  and  Mighty  Prince 
James  ” (which  many  a New  England  boy  of  fifty 
years  ago  wrestled  with  in  the  weary  lapses  of  too 
long  a sermon)  were  to  be  taken  in  its  literal 
significance,  the  obligations  to  him  were  immense  ; 
after  thanking  him  as  principal  mover  and  author 
of  the  work,”  the  dedication  exuberantly  declares 
that  ‘‘  the  hearts  of  all  your  loyal  and  religious  peo- 
ple are  so  bound  and  firmly  knit  unto  you,  that 
your  very  name  is  precious  among  them  : Their 
eye  doth  behold  you  with  comfort,  and  they  bless 
you  in  their  hearts,  as  that  sanctified  person,  who, 


46  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

under  God,  is  the  immediate  author  of  their  true 
Happiness.”  The  King’s  great  reverence  for  the 
Scriptures  is  abundantly  evidenced  by  that  little 
tractate  of  his  — the  Basilikon  Doron  — not  written 
for  publication  (though  surreptitiously  laid  hold  of 
by  the  book-makers)  but  intended  for  the  private 
guidance  of  his  eldest  son,  Prince  Henry,  in  that 
time  heir  to  the  throne.  The  little  book  shows 
large  theologic  discretions ; and  — saving  some 
scornings  of  the  ‘‘vaine,  Pharisaicall  Puritaines”  — 
is  written  in  a spirit  which  might  be  safely  com- 
mended to  later  British  Princes. 

'‘When  yee  reade  the  Scripture  [says  the  King]  reade  it 
with  a sanctified  and  chast  hart ; admire  reverentlie  such 
obscure  places  as  ye  understand  not,  blaming  only  your  own 
capacitie  ; reade  with  delight  the  plaine  places,  and  study 
carefully  to  understand  those  that  are  somewhat  difficile: 
preasse  to  be  a good  textuare  ; for  the  Scripture  is  ever  the 
best  interpreter  of  itself e.” 

Some  forty  odd  competent  men  were  set  out 
from  the  universities  and  elsewheres  for  the  work 
of  the  Bible  revision.  Yet  they  saw  none  of  King 
James’  money,  none  from  the  royal  exchequer ; 
which  indeed  from  the  King’s  disorderly  extrava- 


KING  JAMES'  BIBLE.  47 

gances,  that  helped  nobody,  was  always  lamentably 
low.  The  revisers  got  their  rations,  when  they 
came  together  in  conference,  in  Commons  Hall,  or 
where  and  when  they  could;  and  only  at  the  last 
did  some  few  of  them  who  were  engaged  in  the 
final  work  of  proof-reading,  get  a stipend  of  some 
thirty  shillings  a week  from  that  fraternity  of  book- 
makers who  were  concerned  with  the  printing  and 
selHng  of  the  new  Bible. 

When  the  business  of  revision  actually  com- 
menced it  is  hard  to  determine  accurately ; but  it 
was  not  till  the  year  1611  — eight  years  after  the 
Hampton  Conference — that  an  edition  was  pub- 
lished by  printer  Barker  (who,  or  whose  company, 
was  very  zealous  about  the  matter,  it  being  a fat 
job  for  him)  and  so  presently,  under  name  of  King 
James’ version  ‘‘appointed  (by  assemblage  of  Bish- 
ops) to  be  read  in  churches,”  it  came  to  be  the 
great  Bible  of  the  English-speaking  world  — then, 
and  thence -forward.  And  now,  who  were  the  for- 
ty men  who  dealt  so  wisely  and  sparingly  with  the 
old  translators ; who  came  to  their  offices  of  revi- 
sion with  so  tender  a reverence,  and  who  put  such 
nervous,  masculine,  clear-cut  English  into  their 


48 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


own  emendations  of  this  book  as  to  leave  it  a mon- 
ument of  Literature  ? Their  names  are  all  of  rec- 
ord : and  yet  if  I were  to  print  them,  the  average 
reader  would  not  recognize,  I think,  a single  one 
out  of  the  twoscore.*  You  would  not  find  Bacon’s 
name,  who,  not  far  from  this  time  was  -writing  some 
of  his  noblest  essays,  and  also  writing  (on  the 
King’s  suggestion)  about  preaching  and  Church 
management.  You  would  not  find  the  name  of 
William  Camden,  who  was  then  at  the  mellow  age 
of  sixty,  and  of  a rare  reputation  for  learning  and 
for  dignity  of  character.  You  would  not  find  the 
name  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  who  though 
writing  much  of  religious  intention,  was  deistically 
inclined;  nor  of  Eobert  Burton,  churchman,  and 
author  of  that  famous  book  The  Anatomy  of  Melan-- 

* Among  the  more  important  names  were  those  of  Bishop 
Andrewes  (of  Winchester,  friend  of  Herbert,  and  Dr.  Donne) 
— famous  for  his  oriental  knowledges  : Bedwell  (of  Totting- 
ham),  a distinguished  Arabic  scholar : Sir  Henry  Savile,  a 
very  learned  layman,  and  warden  of  Merton  College  : Rain- 
olds,  representing  the  Puritan  wing  of  the  Church,  and 
President  of  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford  ; and  Chaderton,  Master 
of  Emmanuel,  and  representing  the  same  wing  of  the  Church 
from  Cambridge. 


THE  BIBLE  TRANSLATORS. 


49 


choly  — then  in  his  early  prime ; nor  of  Sir  Walter 
Ealeigh,  nor  of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury  — both  now 
at  the  date  of  their  best  powers ; nor  yet  would  one 
find  mention  of  John  Donne,*  though  he  came  to 
be  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s  and  wrote  poems  the  reader 
may  — and  ought  to  know  ; nor,  yet  again,  is  there 
any  hearing  of  Sir  John  Davies,  who  had  com- 
mended himself  specially  to  King  James,  and  who 
had  written  poetically  and  reverently  on  the  Jmmor- 
tality  of  the  Soul  f in  strains  that  warrant  our  cit- 
ing a few  quatrains  : — 

‘ * At  first,  her  mother  Earth  she  holdeth  dear, 

And  doth  embrace  the  world  and  worldly  things : 

She  flies  close  by  the  ground,  and  hovers  here, 

And  mounts  not  up  with  her  celestial  wings. 

Yet  under  heaven  she  cannot  light  on  aught 
That  with  her  heavenly  nature  doth  agree  ; 

She  cannot  rest,  she  cannot  fix  her  thought. 

She  cannot  in  this  world  contented  he  : 


* John  Donne,  son  of  a London  merchant,  h.  1573,  and 
d.  1631.  There  is  a charming  life  of  him  by  Izaak  Wal- 
ton. The  Grosart  edition  of  his  writings  is  fullest  and 
best. 

f From  his  poem  of  Tfosce  Teipsum,  published  in  1599. 
John  Davies  b.  in  Wiltshire  about  1570,  and  d.  1626. 

II.— 4 


50 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


For  who,  did  ever  yet,  in  honor,  wealth, 

Or  pleasure  of  the  sense,  contentment  find  ? 

Who  ever  ceased  to  wish,  when  he  had  health  ? 

Or,  having  wisdom,  was  not  vexed  in  mind  ? 

Then,  as  a bee  which  among  weeds  doth  fall. 

Which  seem  sweet  flowers,  with  lustre  fresh  and  gay ; 

She  lights  on  that  and  this,  and  tasteth  all. 

But,  pleased  with  none,  doth  rise  and  soar  away  1 

This  is  a long  aside ; but  it  gives  us  good  breath 
to  go  back  to  our  translators,  who  if  not  known  to 
the  general  reader,  were  educators  or  churchmen  of 
rank ; men  of  trained  minds  who  put  system  and 
conscience  and  scholarship  into  their  work.  And 
their  success  in  it,  from  a literary  aspect  only,  shows 
how  interfused  in  all  cultivated  minds  of  that  day 
was  a keen  apprehension  and  warm  appreciation  of 
the  prodigious  range,  and  the  structural  niceties, 
and  rhythmic  forces  of  that  now  well-compacted 
English  language  which  Chaucer  and  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare,  each  in  his  turn,  had  published  to  the 
world,  with  brilliant  illustration. 

And  will  this  old  Bible  of  King  James’  version 
continue  to  be  held  in  highest  reverence  ? Speak- 
ing from  a literary  point  of  view  — which  is  our 


KING  JAMES*  BIBLE. 


51 


stand-point  to-day — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
will ; nor  is  there  good  reason  to  believe  that  — on 
literary  lines  — any  other  will  ever  supplant  it. 
There  may  be  versions  that  will  be  truer  to  the 
Greek ; there  may  be  versions  that  will  be  far 
truer  to  the  Hebrew  ; there  may  be  versions  that 
will  mend  its  science — that  will  mend  its  archae- 
ology — that  will  mend  its  history  ; but  never  one, 
I think,  which,  as  a whole,  will  greatly  mend  that 
orderly  and  musical  and  forceful  flow  of  language 
springing  from  early  English  sources,  chastened  by 
Elizabethan  culture  and  flowing  out  — freighted 
with  Christian  doctrine  — over  all  lands  where 
Saxon  speech  is  uttered.  Nor  in  saying  this,  do 
I yield  a jot  to  any  one  — in  respect  for  that 
modern  scholarship  which  has  shown  bad  render- 
ings from  the  Greek,  and  possibly  far  worse  ones 
from  the  Hebrew.  No  one  — it  is  reasonably  to  be 
presumed  — can  safely  interpret  doctrines  of  the 
Bible  without  the  aid  of  this  scholarship  and  of 
the  ‘‘  higher  criticism  ; and  no  one  will  be  hence- 
forth fully  trusted  in  such  interpretation  who  is 
ignorant  of,  or  who  scorns  the  recent  revisions. 

And  yet  the  old  book,  by  reason  of  its  strong, 


52 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  6-  KINGS. 


sweet,  literary  quality,  will  keep  its  hold  in  most 
hearts  and  most  minds.  Prove  to  the  utmost  that 
the  Doxology,*  at  the  end  of  the  Lord’s  Prayer,  is 
an  interpolation  — that  it  is  nowhere  in  the  earlier 
Greek  texts  (and  I believe  it  is  abundantly  proven), 
and  yet  hundreds,  and  thousands,  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands who  use  that  invocation,  will  keep  on  saying, 
in  the  rhythmic  gush  of  praise,  which  is  due  maybe 
to  some  old  worthy  of  the  times  of  the  Henrys  (per- 
haps Tyndale  himself)  — “ For  thine  is  the  King- 
dom, and  the  Power,  and  the  Glory,  for  ever  and 
ever,  Amen ! ” 

And  so  with  respect  to  that  splendid  Hebraic 
poem  of  Job,  or  that  mooted  book  of  Ecclesiastes  ; 
no  matter  what  critical  scholarship  may  do  in  am- 
plification or  curtailment,  it  can  never  safely  or 
surely  refine  away  the  marvellous  graces  of  their 

* Dr.  Shedd  {Addenda  to  Lange’s  Matthew)  says — “Prob- 
ably it  was  tbe  prevailing  custom  of  the  Christians  in  the 
East^  from  the  beginning  to  pray  the  Lord’s  Prayer,  with  the 
Doxology.”  It  certainly  appears  in  earliest  Syriac  version 
{Peschito,  so  called,  of  second  century).  It  does  not  appear 
in  the  Wyclif  of  1380.  It  will  be  found,  however,  in  the 
Tyndale  of  1534  — which  I am  led  to  believe  is  its  first 
appearance  in  an  accredited  English  translation. 


THE  BIBLE  BEAUTIFUL. 


53 


strong,  old  English  current — burdened  with  ten- 
der memories  — murmurous  with  hopes  drifting 
toward  days  to  come  — “or  ever  the  silver  cord  be 
loosed,  or  the  golden  bowl  be  broken,  or  the  pitcher 
be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or  the  wheel  broken  at 
the  cistern.” 

The  scientists  may  demonstrate  that  this  ancient 
oak  — whose  cooling  shadows  have  for  so  many 
ages  given  comfort  and  delight  — is  overgrown,  un- 
shapely, with  needless  nodules,  and  corky  rind, 
and  splotches  of  moss,  and  seams  that  show  stress 
of  gone-by  belaboring  tempests;  they  may  make 
it  clear  that  these  things  are  needless  for  its  sup- 
port— that  they  cover  and  cloak  its  normal  organic 
structure  ; but  who  shall  hew  them  clean  away,  and 
yet  leave  in  fulness  of  stature  and  of  sheltering 
power  the  majestic  growth  we  venerate?  I know 
the  reader  may  say  that  this  is  a sentimental  view  ; 
so  it  is ; but  science  cannot  measure  the  highest 
beauty  of  a poem ; and  with  whose,  or  what  fine 
scales  shall  we  weigh  the  sanctities  of  religious 
awe? 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  the  charms 
of  the  “ King  James’  Version  ” do  not  lie  altogether 


54 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


in  Elizabethan  beauties  of  phrase,  or  in  Jacobean 
felicities ; there  are  quaint  archaisms  in  it  which 
we  are  sure  have  brought  their  pleasant  reverbera- 
tions of  lingual  sound  all  the  way  down  from  the 
days  of  Coverdale,  of  Tyndale,  and  of  Wyclif. 

A few  facts  about  the  printing  and  publish- 
ing of  the  early  English  Bibles  it  may  be  well  to 
call  to  mind.  In  a previous  chapter  I spoke  of  the 
fatherly  edicts  against  Bible  - reading  and  Bible- 
owning  in  the  time  of  Henry  VUI. ; but  the  reign 
of  his  son,  Edward  VL,  was  a golden  epoch  for  the 
Bible  printers.  During  the  six  years  when  this 
boy-king  held  the  throne,  fifty  editions  — princi- 
pally Coverdale’s  and  Tyndale’s  versions  — were 
issued,  and  no  less  than  fifty-seven  printers  were 
engaged  in  their  manufacture. 

Queen  Mary  made  difficulties  again,  of  which  a 
familiar  and  brilliant  illustration  may  be  found  in 
that  old  New  England  Primer  which  sets  forth  in 
ghastly  wood-cut  “ the  burning  of  Mr.  John  Eog- 
ers  at  the  Stake,  in  Smithfield.’'  Elizabeth  was 
coy ; she  set  a great  many  prison-doors  open  ; and 
when  a courtier  said,  ^‘May  it  please  your  Majesty, 
there  be  sundry  other  prisoners  held  in  durance, 


OF  BIBLE  PRINTERS. 


55 


and  it  would  much  comfort  God’s  people  that  they 
be  set  free.”  She  asked,  ‘‘Whom?”  And  the  good 
Protestant  said,  “Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John.” 
But  she  — young  as  she  was  — showed  her  monarch 
habit.  “Let  us  first  find,”  said  she,  “if  they  wish 
enlargement.” 

But  she  had  accepted  the  gift  of  a Bible  on  first 
passing  through  Cheapside  — had  pressed  it  to  her 
bosom  in  sight  of  the  street  people,  and  said  she 
should  “oft  read  that  holy  book”  — which  was  easy 
to  say,  and  becoming. 

In  the  early  days  of  her  reign  the  Genevan  Bible, 
always  a popular  one  in  England,  was  completed, 
and  printed  mostly  in  Geneva  ; but  a privilege  for 
printing  it  in  England  was  assigned  to  John  Bod- 
ley  — that  John  Bodley  whose  more  eminent  son. 
Sir  Thomas,  afterward  founded  and  endowed  the 
well-known  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford. 

In  the  early  part  of  Elizabeth’s  reign  appeared, 
too,  the  so-called  Bishops’  Bible  (now  a rare  book), 
under  charge  of  Archbishop  Parker,  fifteen  digni- 
taries of  the  Church  being  joined  with  him  in  its 
supervision.  There  were  engravings  on  copper 
and  wood  — of  Elizabeth,  on  the  title-page  — of  the 


56  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

gay  Earl  of  Leicester  at  the  head  of  the  Book  of 
Joshua,  and  of  old,  nodding  Lord  Burleigh  in  the 
Book  of  Psalms.  But  the  Bishops’  Bible  was  never 
so  popular  as  the  Geneva  one.  During  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth  there  were  no  less  than  one  hundred 
and  thirty  distinct  issues  of  Bibles  and  Testaments, 
an  average  of  three  a year. 

It  may  interest  our  special  parish  to  know  further 
that  the  first  American  (English)  Bible  was  printed 
at  Philadelphia,  by  a Scotchman  named  Aitkki,  in 
the  year  1782  ; but  the  first  Bible  printed  in  Amer- 
ica was  in  the  German  language,  issued  by  Chris- 
topher Sauer,  at  Germantown,  in  1743. 

But  I will  not  encroach  any  further  upon  biblical 
teachings  : we  will  come  back  to  our  secular  poets, 
and  to  that  bravest  and  finest  figure  of  them  aU, 
who  was  born  upon  the  Avon. 

ShaJcesjpeare. 

I have  tried  — I will  confess  it  now  — to  pique 
the  reader’s  curiosity,  by  giving  him  stolen  glimpses 
from  time  to  time  of  the  great  dramatist,  and  by 
putting  off,  in  chapter  after  chapter,  any  full  or 
detailed  mention  of  him,  or  of  his  work.  Indeed, 


SHAKESPEARE. 


57 


when  I first  entered  upon  these  talks  respecting 
English  worthies  — whether  places,  or  writers,  or 
sovereigns  — I said  to  myself  — when  we  come  up 
with  that  famous  Shakespeare,  whom  all  the  world 
knows  so  well,  and  about  whom  so  much  has  been 
said  and  written  — we  will  make  our  obeisance,  lift 
our  hat,  and  pass  on  to  the  lesser  men  beyond.  So 
large  a space  did  the  great  dramatist  fill  in  the  de- 
lightsome journey  we  were  to  make  together,  down 
through  the  pleasant  country  of  English  letters, 
that  he  seemed  not  so  much  a personality  as  some 
great  British  stronghold,  with  outworks,  and  with 
pennons  flying  — standing  all  athwart  the  Eliza- 
bethan Valley,  down  which  our  track  was  to  lead  us. 
From  far  away  back  of  Chaucer,  when  the  first  Ro- 
mances of  King  Arthur  were  told,  when  glimpses  of 
a King  Lear  and  a Macbeth  appeared  in  old  chroni- 
cles ~ this  great  monument  of  Elizabethan  times 
loomed  high  in  our  front ; and  go  far  as  we  may 
down  the  current  of  English  letters,  it  will  not  be 
out  of  sight,  but  loom  up  grandly  behind  us.  And 
now  that  we  are  fairly  abreast  of  it,  my  fancy  still 
clings  to  that  figure  of  a great  castle  — brimful  of 
life  — with  which  the  lesser  poets  of  the  age  con- 


58  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

trast  like  so  many  out-lying  towers,  that  we  can 
walk  all  round  about,  and  measure,  and  scale,  and 
tell  of  their  age,  and  forces,  and  style  ; but  this 
Shakespearean  hulk  is  so  vast,  so  wondrous,  so  peo- 
pled with  creatures,  who  are  real,  yet  unreal  — that 
measure  and  scale  count  for  nothing.  We  hear 
around  it  the  tramp  of  armies  and  the  blare  of 
trumpets  ; yet  these  do  not  drown  the  sick  voice  of 
poor  distraught  Ophelia.  We  see  the  white  banner 
of  France  flung  to  the  breeze,  and  the  English  co- 
lumbine nodding  in  clefts  of  the  wall ; we  hear  the 
ravens  croak  from  turrets  that  lift  above  the 
chamber  of  Macbeth,  and  the  howling  of  the  rain- 
storms that  drenched  poor  Lear ; and  we  see  Jes- 
sica at  her  casement,  and  the  Jew  Shylock  whetting 
his  greedy  knife,  and  the  humpbacked  Eichard 
raging  in  battle,  and  the  Prince  boy  — apart  in  his 
dim  tower  — piteously  questioning  the  jailer  Hu- 
bert, who  has  brought  “ hot-irons  ” with  him. 
Then  there  is  Falstaff,  and  Dame  Quickly,  and  the 
pretty  Juliet  sighing  herself  away  from  her  moon- 
lit balcony. 

These  are  all  live  people  to  us  ; we  know  them  ; 
and  we  know  Hamlet,  and  Brutus,  and  Mark  An- 


SHAKESPEARE. 


59 


tony,  and  the  witty,  coquettish  Eosalind ; even  the 
poor  Mariana  of  the  moated  grange.  We  do  not 
see  enough  of  this  latter,  to  be  sure,  to  give  ster- 
eoscopic roundness ; but  the  mere  glimpse  — al- 
lusion— is  of  such  weight — has  such  hue  of  reab 
ness,  that  it  buoys  the  dim  figure  over  the  literary 
currents  and  drifts  of  two  hundred  and  odd  years, 
till  it  gets  itself  planted  anew  in  the  fine  lines  of 
Tennyson  ; — not  as  an  illusion  only,  a figment  of 
the  elder  imagination  chased  down  and  poetically 
adopted  — but  as  an  historic  actuality  we  have  met, 
and  so,  greet  with  the  grace  and  the  knowingness 
of  old  acquaintanceship. 

If  you  tell  me  of  twenty  historic  names  in  these 
reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  — names  of  men  or 
women  whose  lives  and  characters  you  know  best 
— I will  name  to  you  twenty  out  of  the  dramas 
of  Shakespeare  whose  lives  and  characters  you 
know  better. 

And  herein  lies  the  difference  between  this  man 
Shakespeare,  and  most  that  went  before  him,  or 
who  have  succeeded  him  ; he  has  supplied  real 
characters  to  count  up  among  the  characters  we 
know.  Chaucer  did  indeed  in  that  Canterbury  Pil- 


6o 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


grimage  whicli  he  told  us  of  in  such  winning  num- 
bers, make  us  know  by  a mere  touch,  in  some  un- 
forgetable  way,  all  the  outer  aspects  of  the  Khight, 
and  the  Squire,  and  the  Prioress,  and  the  shrewish 
Wife  of  Bath  ; but  we  do  not  see  them  insidedly  ; 
and  as  for  the  Una,  and  Gloriana,  and  Britomart, 
of  the  ^‘Faerie  Queene,”  they  are  phantasmic ; we 
may  admire  them,  but  we  admire  them  as  we  ad- 
mire fine  bird-plumes  tossing  airily,  delightsomely 
— they  have  no  fiesh  and  blood  texture  : and  if  I 
were  to  name  to  you  a whole  catalogue  of  the  best- 
drawn  characters  out  of  Jonson,  and  Fletcher,  and 
Massinger,  and  the  rest,  you  would  hardly  know 
them.  Will  you  try  ? You  may  know  indeed  the 
Sir  Giles  Overreach  of  Massinger,  because  ‘‘A  New 
Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts”  has  always  a certain  relish  ; 
and  because  Sir  Giles  is  a dreadful  type  of  the  un- 
natural, selfish  greed  that  maddens  us  everywhere  ; 
but  do  you  know  well  — Sejanus,  or  Tamburlaine, 
or  Bellisant,  or  Boadicea,  or  Bellario,  or  Bobadil,  or 
Calantha  ? You  do  not  even  know  them  to  bow  to. 
And  this,  not  alone  because  we  are  unused  to  read 
or  to  hear  the  plays  in  which  these  characters  ap- 
pear, but  because  none  of  them  have  that  vital 


SHAKESPEARE^S  YOUTH. 


6i 


roundness,  completeness,  and  individuality  which 
makes  their  memory  stick  in  the  mind,  when  once 
they  have  shown  their  qualities. 

We  are,  all  of  us,  in  the  way  of  meeting  people 
in  respect  of  whom  a week,  or  even  a day  of  inter- 
course, will  so  fasten  upon  us — maybe  their  pun- 
gency, their  alertness,  or  some  one  of  their  decided, 
fixed,  fine  attributes,  that  they  thenceforth  people 
our  imagination ; not  obtrusively  there  indeed,  but 
a look,  a name,  an  allusion,  calls  back  their  special 
significance,  as  in  a photographic  blaze.  Others 
there  are,  in  shoals,  whom  we  may  meet,  day  by 
day,  month  by  month,  who  have  such  washed-out 
color  of  mind,  who  do  so  take  hues  from  all  sur- 
roundings, without  any  strong  hue  of  their  own, 
that  in  parting  from  them  we  forget,  straightway, 
what  manner  of  folk  they  were.  You  cannot  part 
so  from  the  people  Shakespeare  makes  you  know. 

Shakespeare^s  Youth. 

And  now  what  was  the  personality  of  this  man, 
who,  out  of  his  imagination,  has  presented  to  us 
such  a host  of  acquaintances  ? Who  was  he,  where 


62 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


did  he  live,  how  did  he  live,  and  what  about  his 
father,  or  his  children,  or  his  family  retinue  ? 

And  here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  the 
awkward  fact,  that  we  have  less  positive  knowledge 
of  him,  and  of  his  habits  of  life  than  of  many  smaller 
men  — poets  and  dramatists  — who  belonged  to  his 
time,  and  who — with  a pleasant  egoism  — let  drop 
little  tidbits  of  information  about  their  personal 
history.  But  Shakespeare  did  not  write  letters  that 
we  know  of;  he  did  not  prate  of  himself  in  his 
books ; he  did  not  entertain  such  quarrels  with 
brother  authors  as  provoked  reckless  exposure  of 
the  family  ‘‘  wash.”  Of  Greene,  of  Nashe,  of  Dek- 
ker,  of  Jonson,  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  we  have 
personal  particulars  about  their  modes  of  living, 
their  associates,  their  dress  even,  which  we  seek  for 
vainly  in  connection  with  Shakespeare.  This  is 
largely  due,  doubtless  — aside  from  the  pleasant 
egoism  at  which  I have  hinted  — to  the  circum- 
stance that  most  of  these  were  university  men,  andl 
had  very  many  acquaintances  among  those  of  cult- 
ure who  kept  partial  record  of  their  old  associates. 
But  no  school  associate  of  Shakespeare  ever  kept 
track  of  him  ; he  ran  out  of  sight  of  them  alL 


SHAKESPEARE'S  YOUTH, 


63 


He  did  study,  however,  in  his  young  days,  at  that 
old  town  of  Stratford,  where  he  was  born  — his 
father  being  fairly  placed  there  among  the  honest 
tradespeople  who  lived  around.  The  ancient  timber- 
and-plaster  shop  is  still  standing  in  Henley  Street, 
where  his  father  served  his  customers  — wheth- 
er in  wool,  meats,  or  gloves  — and  in  the  upper 
front  chamber  of  which  Shakespeare  first  saw  the 
light.  Forty  odd  years  ago,  when  I first  visited  it, 
the  butcher’s  fixtures  were  not  wholly  taken  down 
which  had  served  some  descendant  of  the  fam- 
ily — in  the  female  line  * — toward  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  the  cutting  of  meats.  Into 
what  Pimlico  order  it  may  be  put  to-day,  under  the 


* The  allusion  is  to  the  Harts,  whose  ancestress  was  Shake- 
speare’s sister  Joan.  A monumental  record  in  Trinity 
Church,  Stratford,  reads  thus:  “In  memory  of  Thomas 
Hart,  who  was  the  fifth  descendant  in  a direct  line  from 
Joan,  eldest  daughter  of  John  Shakespeare.  He  died  May 
23,  1793.” 

A son  of  the  above  Thomas  Hart  ‘ ‘ followed  the  business 
of  a butcher  at  Stratford,  where  he  was  living  in  1794.” 
Still  another  Thomas  Hart  (eighth  in  descent  from  Joan)  is 
said  to  be  now  living  in  Australia — the  only  male  repre- 
sent! ve  of  that  branch  of  the  family. 


64 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


hands  of  the  Shakespeare  Society,  I do  not  know  \ 
but  it  is  understood  that  its  most  characteristio 
features  are  religiously  guarded;  and  house,  and 
town,  and  church  are  all  worthy  of  a visit.  The 
town  does  not  lie,  indeed,  on  either  of  those  great 
thoroughfares  which  Americans  are  wont  to  take  on 
their  quick  rush  from  Liverpool  to  London,  and 
the  Continent ; but  it  is  easily  approachable  on  the 
north  from  Warwick,  in  whose  immediate  vicinity 
are  Kenilworth  and  Guy’s  Cliff ; and  from  the  south 
through  Oxford,  whose  scores  of  storied  towers  and 
turrets  beguile  the  student  traveller.  The  country 
around  Stratford  has  not,  indeed,  the  varied  pic- 
turesqueness  of  Derbyshire  or  of  Devon  ; but  it 
has  in  full  the  quiet  rural  charm  that  belongs  to  so 
many  townships  of  Middle-England  ; — hawthorn 
hedges,  smooth  roads,  embowered  side  lanes,  great 
swells  of  greensward  where  sheep  are  quietly  feed- 
ing ; clumps  of  gray  old  trees,  with  rookeries  plant- 
ed in  them,  and  tall  chimneys  of  country  houses  lift- 
ing over  them  and  puffing  out  little  wavelets  of  blue 
smoke  ; meadows  with  cattle  browsing  on  them ; 
wayside  stiles ; a river  and  canals,  slumberous  in 
their  tides,  with  barges  of  coal  and  lumber  swaying 


STRATFORD  LANDSCAPE.  65 

with  the  idle  currents  that  swish  among  the  sedges 
at  the  banks. 

On  the  north,  toward  Warwick,  are  the  Wel- 
combe  hills,  here  and  there  tufted  with  great  trees, 
which  may  have  mingled  their  boughs,  in  some 
early  time,  with  the  skirts  of  the  forest  of  Arden  ; 
and  from  these  heights,  looking  southwest,  one 
can  see  the  packed  gray  and  red  roofs  of  the  town, 
the  lines  of  lime-trees,  the  elms  and  the  willows  of 
the  river’s  margin,  out  of  which  rises  the  dainty 
steeple  of  Stratford  church  ; while  beyond,  the  eye 
leaps  over  the  hazy  hollows  of  the  Ked-horse  valley, 
and  lights  upon  the  blue  rim  of  hills  in  Gloucester- 
shire, known  as  the  Cotswolds  (which  have  given 
name  to  one  of  the  famous  breeds  of  English 
sheep).  More  to  the  left,  and  nearer  to  a south 
line  of  view,  crops  up  Edgehill  (near  to  Pilot-Mars- 
ton),  an  historic  battle-field  — wherefrom  Shake- 
speare, on  his  way  to  London  may  have  looked 
back  — on  spire,  and  alder  copse,  and  river — with 
more  or  less  of  yearning.  To  the  right,  again,  and 
more  westerly  than  before,  and  on  the  hither  side  of 
the  Eed-horse  valley  and  plain,  one  can  catch  sight 

of  the  rounded  thickets  of  elms  and  of  orcharding 
II. -5 


66 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


where  nestles  the  hamlet  of  Shottery.  Thence 
Shakespeare  brought  away  his  bride,  Anne  Hatha- 
way, she  being  well  toward  the  thirties,  and  he  at 
that  date  a prankish  young  fellow  not  yet  nineteen. 
What  means  he  may  have  had  of  supporting  a fam- 
ily at  this  time,  we  cannot  now  say ; nor  could  his 
father-in-law  tell  then  ; on  which  score  there  was  — 
as  certain  traditions  run  — some  vain  demurral.  He 
may  have  been  associated  with  his  father  in  trade, 
whether  as  wool-dealer  or  glover ; doubtless  was ; 
doubtless,  too,  had  abandoned  all  schooling ; doubt- 
less was  at  all  the  wakes,  and  May  festivals,  and 
entertainments  of  strolling  players,  and  had  many 
a bout  of  heavy  ale-drinking.  There  are  stories  too 
— of  lesser  authenticity  — that  he  was  over-familiar 
with  the  game  in  the  near  Park  of  Charlecote, 
whereby  he  came  to  ugly  issue  with  its  owner.  We 
shall  probably  never  know  the  truth  about  these 
stories.  Charlecote  House  is  still  standing,  a few 
miles  out  of  the  town  (northeasterly),  and  its  de- 
lightful park,  and  picturesque  mossy  walls  — dap- 
pled with  patches  of  shadow  and  with  ivy  leaves  — 
look  charmingly  innocent  of  any  harm  their  master 
could  have  done  to  William  Shakespeare ; but  cer- 


FAMILY  OF  SHAKESPEARE. 


67 


tain  it  is  that  the  neighborhood  grew  too  warm  for 
him  ; and  that  he  set  off  one  day  (being  then  about 
twenty-three  years  old)  for  London,  to  seek  his 
fortune. 

Family  Relations. 

His  wife  and  three  children  ^ stayed  behind.  In 
fact — and  it  may  as  well  be  said  here  — they  always 
stayed  behind.  It  does  not  appear  that  throughout 
the  twenty  or  more  succeeding  years,  during  which 
Shakespeare  was  mostly  in  London,  that  either  wife 
or  child  was  ever  domiciled  with  him  there  for  ever 
so  little  time.  Indeed,  for  the  nine  years  immedi- 
ately following  Shakespeare’s  departure  from  Strat- 
ford, traces  of  his  special  whereabouts  are  very  dim ; 
we  know  that  rising  from  humblest  work  in  con- 
nection with  companies  of  players,  he  was  blazing 
a great  and  most  noticeable  path  for  himself ; but 
whether  through  those  nine  years  he  was  tied  to 
the  shadow  of  London  houses,  or  was  booked  for 
up-country  expeditions,  or  (as  some  reckon)  made 

* Susanna,  the  eldest,  baptized  1583 ; Hamnet  and  Ju- 
dith (twins),  baptized  1585.  In  1596  Hamnet  died  ; in 
1607  Susanna  married  Dr.  Hall ; and  in  1616  (year  of  Shake- 
speare’s  death)  Judith  married  Quiney,  vintner. 


68 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


brief  continental  journeyings,  we  cannot  surely 
tell.  In  1596,  however,  on  the  occasion  of  his  son 
Hamnet’s  death,  he  appears  in  Stratford  again,  in 
the  prime  of  his  powers  then,  a well-to-do  man 
(buying  New  Place  the  year  following),  his  London 
fame  very  likely  blazoning  his  path  amid  old  towns- 
people — grieving  over  his  lost  boy,  whom  he  can 
have  seen  but  little  — joerhaps  putting  some  of  the 
color  of  his  private  sorrow  upon  the  palette  where 
he  was  then  mingling  the  tints  for  his  play  of  ‘‘Eo- 
meo  and  Juliet.” 

Oh,  mj  love, 

Death  that  hath  sucked  the  honey  of  thy  breath 
Hath  had  no  power  yet  upon  thy  beauty. 

Thou  art  not  conquered  ; Beauty’s  ensign  yet 
Is  crimson  in  thy  lips,  and  in  thy  cheeks, 

And  death’s  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there. 

Why  art  thou  yet  so  fair  ? ” 

His  two  daughters  lived  to  maturity  — both 
marrying ; the  favorite  and  elder  daughter,  Su- 
sanna, becoming  the  wife  of  Dr.  Hall,  a well-estab- 
lished physician  in  Stratford,  who  attended  the 
poet  in  his  last  illness,  and  who  became  his  ex- 
ecutor. Shakespeare  was  — so  far  as  known  — 
watchful  and  tender  of  his  children’s  interest : nor 


SHAKESPEARE  IN  HIS  FAMILY.  69 


is  there  positive  evidence  that  he  was  otherwise  to 
his  wife,  save  such  inferences  as  may  be  drawn 
from  the  tenor  of  some  of  his  sonnets,  and  from 
those  long  London  absences,  over  which  it  does  not 
appear  that  either  party  greatly  repined.  Long  ab- 
sences are  not  prima-facie  evidence  of  a lack  of  do- 
mestic harmonies  ; do  indeed  often  promote  them 
in  a limited  degree  ; and  at  worst,  may  possibly 
show  only  a sagacious  disposition  to  give  pleasant 
noiselessness  to  bickerings  that  would  be  inevitable. 
It  is  further  to  be  borne  in  mind,  in  partial 
vindication  of  Shakespeare’s  marital  loyalty,  that 
this  period  of  long  exile  from  the  family  roof  en- 
tailed not  only  absence  from  his  wife,  but  also  from 
father  and  mother  — both  of  whom  were  living 
down  to  a date  long  subsequent,^  and  with  whom 
— specially  the  mother  — most  affectionate  rela- 
tions are  undoubted.  A disloyalty  that  would  have 
made  him  coy  of  wifely  visitings  could  hardly 
harden  him  to  filial  duties,  while  the  phlegmatic 
indifference  of  a very  busy  London  man,  which 
made  him  chary  of  home  visitings,  would  go  far  to 
explain  the  seeming  family  estrangement. 


* His  father  died  in  1601,  and  his  mother  in  1608. 


70 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


But  we  must  not,  and  cannot  reckon  the  Strat- 
ford poet  as  a paragon  of  all  the  virtues ; his  long 
London  absences,  for  cause  or  for  want  of  cause  — 
or  both  — may  have  given  many  twinges  of  pain 
to  his  own  mother  (of  Arden  blood),  and  to  the 
mother  of  his  children.  Yet  after  the  date  of  his 
boy’s  death,  up  to  the  time  of  his  final  return  to 
Stratford  there  are  evidences  of  very  frequent 
home  visits,  and  of  large  interest  in  what  concerned 
his  family  and  towns-people. 

His  journeyings  to  and  fro,  probably  on  horse- 
back, may  have  taken  him  by  way  of  Edgehill,  and 
into  Banbury  (of  "‘Banbury-Cross”  buns) ; or,  more 
likely,  he  would  have  followed  the  valley  of  the 
Stour  by  Shipston,  and  thence  up  the  hills  to 
Chipping-Norton,  and  skirting  Whichwood  Forest, 
which  still  darkens  a twelve-mile  stretch  of  land 
upon  the  right,  and  so  by  Ditchley  and  the  great 
Woodstock  Park,  into  Oxford.  I recall  these  names 
and  the  succession  of  scenes  the  more  distinctly, 
for  the  reason  that  some  forty  years  ago  I went 
over  the  whole  stretch  of  road  from  Windsor  to 
Stratford  on  foot,  staying  the  nights  at  wayside 
inns,  and  lunching  at  little,  mossy  hostelries,  some  of 


SHAKESPEARE^ S ROAD, 


71 


which  the  poet  may  possibly  have  known,  and  look- 
ing out  wonderingly  and  reverently  for  glimpses  of 
wood,  or  field,  or  flood,  that  may  have  caught  the 
embalmment  of  his  verse.  It  was  worth  getting  up 
betimes  to  verify  such  lines  as  these  : — 

“ Full  many  a glorious  morning  have  I seen 
Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green, 

Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy  ; 

or  those  others,  telling  how  the  gentle  day 

**  Dapples  the  drowsy  East  with  spots  of  gray.” 

Again,  there  was  delightful  outlook  for 

“ a hank  whereon  the  wild  thyme  blows 

Where  oxlips  and  the  nodding  violet  grows  ; ” 

or,  perhaps  it  was  the 

‘‘ Summer’s  green,  all  girded  up  in  sheaves” 

that  caught  the  eye  ; or,  yet  again,  the  picturesque 
hedgerows,  which. 

Like  prisoners  overgrown  with  hair 
Put  forth  disordered  twigs ; 

and  these  flanked  by  some 

even  mead,  which  erst  brought  sweetly  forth 

The  freckled  cowslip,  burnet,  and  green  clover.” 


72 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


What  a wondrous  light  upon  all  the  landscape^ 
along  all  the  courses  of  his  country  journeyings! 
Nor  can  I forbear  to  tell  how  such  illumination 
once  made  gay  for  me  all  the  long  foot-tramp  from 
Chipping-Norton  to  Stratford  — past  Long  Comp- 
ton, and  past  Shipston  (with  lunch  at  the  “Koyal 
George  ”)  — past  Atherton  Church,  and  thence 
along  the  lovely  Stour  banks,  and  some  weary  miles 
of  grassy  level,  till  the  spire  of  Trinity  rose  shim- 
mering in  the  late  sunlight;  afterward  copses  of 
elms,  and  willows  clearly  distinguishable,  and  throw- 
ing afternoon  shadows  on  the  silvery  stretch  of  the 
Avon ; then  came  sight  of  lazy  boats,  and  of  Clopton 
bridge,  over  which  I strolled  foot-weary,  into  streets 
growing  dim  in  the  twilight ; coming  thus,  by  a trav- 
eller’s chance,  into  the  court  of  the  Eed-Horse  Tav- 
ern, and  into  its  little  back-parlor,  where  after  dinner 
one  was  served  by  the  gracious  hostess  with  a copy 
of  Irving’s  ‘‘  Sketch  Book  ” (its  Stratford  chapter  all 
tattered  and  thumb-worn).  In  short,  I had  the  rare 
good  fortune  to  stumble  upon  the  very  inn  where 
Geoffrey  Crayon  was  quartered  twenty  odd  years  be- 
fore, and  was  occupying,  for  the  nonce,  the  very 
parlor  where  he  had  thrust  his  feet  into  slippers, 


SHAKESPEARE  IN  LONDON 


73 


made  a sceptre  of  the  poker,  and  enjoyed  the  royal- 
ties of  ‘‘  mine  inn.” 

Shakespeare  in  London, 

But  how  fares  our  runaway  Shakespeare  in 
London?  What  is  he  to  do  there?  We  do  not 
positively  know  that  he  had  a solitary  acquaintance 
established  in  the  city  ; certainly  not  one  of  a high 
and  helping  position.  He  was  not  introduced,  as 
Spenser  had  been,  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  by 
Raleigh  to  the  favor  of  the  Queen.  He  has  no  lit- 
erary backing  of  the  colleges,  or  of  degrees,  or  of 
learned  associates ; nay,  not  being  so  high  placed, 
or  so  well  placed,  but  that  his  townsmen  of  most 
respectability  shook  their  heads  at  mention  of  him. 

But  he  has  heard  the  strolling  players ; perhaps 
has  journeyed  up  in  their  trail ; he  has  read  broad- 
sides, very  likely,  from  London  ; we  may  be  sure 
that  he  has  tried  his  hand  at  verses,  too,  in  those 
days  when  he  went  courting  to  the  Hathaway  cot- 
tage. So  he  drifts  to  the  theatres,  of  which  there 
were  three  at  least  established,  when  he  first 
trudged  along  the  Strand  toward  Blackfriars.  He 
gets  somewhat  to  do  in  connection  with  them ; 


74 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


precisely  what  that  is,  we  do  not  know.  But  he 
comes  presently  to  be  enrolled  as  player,  taking  old 
men’s  parts  that  demand  feeling  and  dignity.  We 
know,  too,  that  he  takes  to  the  work  of  mending 
plays,  and  splicing  good  parts  together.  Sneered  at 
very  likely,  by  the  young  fellows  from  the  univer- 
sities who  are  doing  the  same  thing,  and  may  be, 
writing  plays  of  their  own ; but  lacking  Shake- 
speare’s instinct  as  to  what  will  take  hold  of  the 
popular  appetite,  or  rather  — let  us  say  — what  will 
touch  the  human  heart. 

There  are  poems,  too,  that  he  writes  early  in  this 
town  life  of  his,  dedicated  to  that  Earl  of  South- 
ampton * of  whom  I have  already  spoken,  and  into 
whose  good  graces  he  has  somehow  fallen.  But 
the  Earl  is  eight  or  ten  years  his  junior,  a mere  boy 


* The  dedication  of  Vemis  and  Adonis  (and  subsequent- 
ly of  Tarquin  and  Lucrece)  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton  is 
undoubted  ; nor  are  intimate  friendly  relations  doubted  ; 
but  the  further  supposition  — long  accredited  — that  the  ma- 
jor part  of  the  Sonnets  were  addressed  to  the  same  Earl — 
is  now  generally  abandoned  — entirely  so  by  the  new  Shake- 
spearean scholars.  William  Herbert  (Earl  of  Pembroke)  — 
to  whom  is  dedicated  the  1623  folio  — is  counted  by  many 
the  “begetter”  of  these,  and  the  rival  of  the  poet  in  loves  of 


SHAKESPEARE^ S FIRST  POEM, 


75 


in  fact,  just  from  Cambridge,  strangely  attracted  by 
this  high-browed,  blue-eyed,  sandy-haired  young 
fellow  from  Stratford,  who  has  shown  such  keenness 
and  wondrous  insight. 

Would  you  hear  a little  bit  of  what  he  wrote  in 
what  he  calls  the  first  heir  of  my  invention  ? ” It 
is  wonderfully  descriptive  of  a poor  hare  who  is 
hunted  by  hounds  ; which  he  had  surely  seen  over 
and  again  on  the  Oxfordshire  or  Cotswold  downs : 

‘ ‘ Sometimes  he  runs  among  a flock  of  sheep, 

To  make  the  cunning  hounds  mistake  their  smell, 
And  sometime  sorteth  with  a herd  of  deer ; 

Danger  deviseth  shifts  ; wit  waits  on  fear. 

“For  there,  his  smell,  with  others  being  mingled, 

The  hot-scent  snuffing  hounds  are  driven  to  doubt, 
Ceasing  their  clamorous  cry,  till  they  have  singled 
With  much  ado,  the  cold  fault  clearly  out ; 

Then  do  they  spend  their  mouths : Echo  replies 
As  if  another  chase  were  in  the  skies. 

“ By  this  poor  Wat,  far  off  upon  a hill. 

Stands  on  his  hinder  legs  with  listening  fear. 


the  “dark-eyed  ” frail  one,  whose  identity  has  so  provoked 
inquiry. 

A late  theory  favors  a Miss  Fitton,  of  whom  a descendant, 
the  Rev.  Fred.  Fitton,  has  latterly  made  himself  advocate 
See  AtfiencBU7n  for  February  20,  1886. 


76  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

To  hearken  if  his  foes  pursue  him  still ; 

Anon,  their  loud  alarums  he  doth  hear; 

And  now  his  grief  may  he  compared  well 

To  one  sore-sick,  that  hears  the  passing  bell.” 

It  must  have  been  close  upon  this  that  his  first 
play  was  written  and  played,  though  not  published 
until  some  years  after.  It  may  have  been  “Love’s 
Labor’s  Lost,”  it  may  have  been  the  “ Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona ; ” no  matter  what : I shall  not  enter 
into  the  question  of  probable  succession  of  his 
plays,  as  to  which  critics  will  very  likely  be  never 
wholly  agreed.^  It  is  enough  that  he  wrote  them  ; 
the  merry  ones  when  his  heart  was  light,  and  the 

* A very  good  exhibit  of  best  opinions  on  such  points  may 
be  found  briefly  summarized  in  Stopford  Brooke’s  little 
Primer  of  English  Literature ; see  also  Mr.  Fleay’s  recent 
Chronical  History  of  Shakespeare;  and  fuller  discussion 
(though  somewhat  antiquated)  in  Dr.  Drake’s  interesting  dis- 
cussion of  Shakespeare  and  his  Times,  I name  this  book,  not 
as  wholly  authoritative,  or  comparable  with  the  mass  of 
newer  criticism  which  has  been  developed  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  different  Shakespeare  societies,  but  as  massing 
together  a great  budget  of  information  from  cotemporaneoua 
authors  and  full  of  entertaining  reading.  In  America,  the 
Shakespearean  labors  of  Hudson,  Grant  White,  and  Dr. 
Kolfe  are  to  be  noted ; and  also  — with  larger  emphasis  — 
the  beginnings  of  the  monumental  work  of  Mr.  Furniss. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  EARLY  WORKS.  77 


tragic  ones  when  grief  lay  heavily  upon  him.  And 
yet  this  is  only  partially  true  ; he  had  such  amazing 
power  of  subordinating  his  feeling  to  his  thought. 

I wonder  how  much  of  his  own  hopes  and  pos- 
sible foretaste  he  did  put  into  the  opening  lines 
of  what,  by  most  perhaps,  is  reckoned  his  first 
play:  — 

“ Let  Fame,  that  all  hunt  after  in  their  lives, 

Live  registered  upon  our  brazen  tombs, 

And  then  grace  us  in  the  disgrace  of  Death ; 

When,  spite  of  cormorant-devouring  Time, 

The  endeavor  of  this  present  breath  may  buy 
That  honor,  which  shall  bate  his  scythe’s  keen  edge 
And  make  us  heirs  of  all  Eternity  ! ” 

Work  and  JRejputation. 

And  what  was  thought  of  him  in  those  first  days  ? 
Not  overmuch  ; none  looked  upon  him  as  largely 
overtopping  his  compeers  of  that  day.  His  Venu^ 
and  Adonis^  was  widely  and  admiringly  known:  so 
was  hiB  Lucrece ; but  Marlowe’s  “sound  and  fury” 
in  “ Tamburlaine  ” would  have  very  possibly  drawn 
twice  the  house  of  “ Love’s  Labor’s  Lost.” 

* Seven  editions  of  this  poem  were  published  between 
1593  and  1602. 


78 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


He  had  no  coterie  behind  him ; he  was  hail-fel- 
low with  Jonson  ; probably  knew  Peele  and  Mar- 
lowe well ; undoubtedly  knew  Drayton  ; he  went  to 
the  Falcon  and  the  Mermaid ; but  there  is,  I believe, 
no  certain  evidence  that  he  ever  saw  much  of  Ka- 
leigh,  or  of  Spenser,  who  was  living  some  years 
after  he  came  to  London-  It  is  doubtful,  indeed, 
if  the  poet  of  the  Faery  Queene  knew  him  at  alL 
Sidney  he  probably  never  saw  ; nor  did  he  ever  go, 
so  far  as  appears,  to  dine  with  the  great  Francis 
Bacon,  as  Jonson  without  doubt  sometimes  did,  or 
with  Burleigh,  or  with  Cecil. 

His  lack  of  precise  learning  may  have  made  him 
inapt  for  encounter  with  school-men.  But  he  had 
a faculty  of  apprehension  that  transcended  mere 
scholastic  learning  — apprehending  everywhere,  in 
places  where  studious  ones  were  blind.  I can  im- 
agine that  Oxford  men  — just  up  in  town  or  those 
who  had  written  theses  for  university  purposes, 
would  sneer  at  such  show  of  learning  as  he  made  ; 
— call  it  cheap  erudition  — call  it  result  of  cram- 
ming— as  many  university  men  do  nowadays  when 
they  find  a layman  and  outsider  hitting  anything 
that  respects  learning  in  the  eye.  But,  ah,  what 


SHAKESPEARE. 


79 


a gift  of  cramming ! What  a gift  of  apprehen- 
sion ! What  a swift  march  over  the  hedges  that 
cramp  schools ! What  a flight,  where  other  men 
walked,  and  were  dazed  and  discomfited  by  this 
unheard-of  progress  into  the  ways  of  knowledge 
and  of  wisdom  ! 

Again,  these  Shakespeare  plays  do  sometimes 
show  crude  things,  vulgar  things,  coarse  things  — 
things  we  want  to  skip  and  do  skip  — things  that 
make  us  wonder  if  he  ever  wrote  them  ; perhaps 
some  which  in  the  mendings  and  tinkerings  of 
those  and  later  days  have  no  business  there  ; and 
yet  he  was  capable  of  saying  coarse  things  ; he  did 
have  a shrewd  eye  for  the  appetites  of  the  ground- 
lings ; he  did  look  on  all  sides,  and  into  all  depths 
of  the  moral  Cosmos  he  was  rounding  out ; and 
even  his  commonest  utterances,  have,  after  all,  a cer- 
tain harmony,  though  in  lowest  key,  with  the  gen- 
eral drift.  He  is  not  always,  as  some  of  his  dra- 
matic compeers  were,  on  tragic  stilts.  He  is  never 
under  strain  to  float  high. 

Then,  too,  like  Chaucer — his  noblest  twin-fellow 
of  English  poesy  — he  steals,  plagiarizes,  takes  tales 
of  passion,  and  love,  and  wreck,  wherever  in  human 


8o 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


history  he  can  find  them,  to  work  into  his  purposes 
But  even  the  authors  could  scarce  recognize  the 
thefts  in  either  case,  so  glorified  are  they  by  the 
changes  they  undergo  under  these  wonder-making 
hands. 

As  with  story,  so  it  is  with  sentiment.  This  he 
steals  out  of  men’s  brains  and  hearts  by  wholesale. 
What  smallest  poet,  whether  in  print  or  talk,  could 
have  failed  to  speak  of  man’s  journey  to  his  last 
home  ? Shakespeare  talks  of 

“That  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourn  no  trav- 
eller returns,” 

and  the  sentiment  is  so  imaged,  and  carries  such  a 
trail  of  agreeing  and  caressing  thoughts,  that  it 
supplants  all  kindred  speech. 

“This  life,”  says  Shakespeare,  “is  but  a stage 
and  the  commentators  can  point  you  out  scores  of 
like  similes  in  older  writers  — Erasmus  among  the 
rest,  whose  utterance  seems  almost  duplicated ; 
duplicated,  indeed,  but  with  a tender  music,  and  a 
point,  and  a breadth,  that  make  all  previous  related 
similes  forgotten.  Such  utterances  grow  out  of 
instincts  common  to  us  all ; but  this  man,  in  whom 


SHAKESPEARE. 


8i 


the  common  instinct  is  a masterful  alembic,  fuses 
all  old  teachings,  and  white-hot  they  run  out  of  the 
crucible  of  his  soul  in  such  beauteous  shapes  that 
they  are  sought  for  and  gloried  in  forever  after. 
Many  a Hamlet  has  soliloquized — you  and  I per- 
haps ; but  never  a Hamlet  in  such  way  as  did  Shake- 
speare’s ; so  crisp  — so  full  — so  suggestive  — so  mar- 
rowy — so  keen  — so  poignant  — so  enthralling. 

No,  no ; this  man  did  not  go  about  in  quest  of 
newnesses ; only  little  geniuses  do  that ; but  the 
great  genius  goes  along  every  commonest  roadside, 
looking  on  every  commonest  sight  of  tree  or  flower, 
of  bud,  of  death,  of  birth,  of  flight,  of  labor,  of 
song ; leads  in  old  tracks ; deals  in  old  truths,  but 
with  such  illuminating  power  that  they  all  come 
home  to  men’s  souls  with  new  penetrative  force  and 
new  life  in  them.  He  catches  by  intuition  your 
commonest  thought,  and  my  commonest  thought, 
and  puts  them  into  new  and  glorified  shape. 

His  Thrift  and  Closing  Years. 

Again,  this  Shakespeare  of  ours,  singing  among 

the  stars,  is  a shrewd,  thrifty  man ; he  comes  to 

have  an  interest  in  all  those  shillings  and  sixpences 
II. -6 


82 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  &*  KINGS. 


that  go  into  the  till  of  the  Globe  Theatre  ; he  makes 
money.  Where  he  lived  in  London,*  we  do  not 
definitely  know ; at  one  time,  it  is  believed,  on  the 
Southwark  side,  near  to  the  old  Bear-garden,f  but 
never  ostentatiously  ; very  likely  sharing  chambers 
with  his  brother  Edmond,  who  was  much  time  an 
actor  there  ; J he  buys  a house  and  haberdasher's 
shop  somewhere  near  Blackfriars  ; and  he  had  pre- 
viously bought,  with  his  savings  — even  before 
Queen  Elizabeth  was  dead  — a great  house  in 
Stratford.  This  he  afterwards  equips  by  purchase 
of  outlying  lands  — a hundred  acres  at  one  time. 


* The  Nation  (N.  Y.),  of  March  7,  1884,  has  this: 

“In  an  indenture  between  the  Hon.  Sir  Rich^  Sal  ton- 
stall,  Knt.,  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  and  2 others,  Commis- 
sioners of  her  Majesty  (fortieth  yr  of  Queen  Elizabeth),  and 
the  parties  deputed  to  collect  the  first  of  these  subsidies 
granted  by  Parliament  the  yr  preceding  — (bearing  date  Oct. 
1598),  for  the  rate  of  8^  Helen's  Parish,  Bishopsgate  ward  — 
the  name  of  Wm.  8ha1ce^eare  is  found  as  liable,  with  others, 
to  that  rate.” 

This,  if  it  be  indeed  our  William  who  is  named,  would 
serve  to  show  residence  in  “ S*  Helen’s  Parish”  — in  which  is 
the  venerable  Crosby  Hall. 

f See  Halliwell-Phillips  (vol.  i.,  p.  130;  7th  ed.). 

X Edmond  Shakespeare  was  buried  in  St.  Saviour’s  in  1007. 


CLOSING  YEARS  OF  SHAKESPEARE,  83 

and  twenty  and  more  at  another.  He  has  never 
forgotten  and  never  forgotten  to  love,  country  sights 
and  sounds.  These  journeyings  to  and  fro  along 
the  Oxford  and  Uxbridge  road  (on  horseback  prob- 
ably), from  which  he  can  see  sheer  over  hedges,  and 
note  every  fieldfare,  every  lark  rising  to  its  morning 
carol,  every  gleam  of  brook,  have  kept  alive  his  old 
fondnesses,  and  he  counts  surely  on  a return  to 
these  scenes  in  his  great  New  Place  of  Stratford. 
He  does  break  away  for  that  Stratford  cover,  while 
the  game  of  life  seems  still  at  its  best  promise; 
while  Hamlet  is  still  comparatively  a new  man  upon 
the  boards  ; does  settle  himself  in  that  country 
home,  to  gather  his  pippins,  to  pet  his  dogs,  to 
wander  at  will  upon  greensward  that  is  his  own. 

I wish  we  had  record  of  only  one  of  his  days  in 
that  retirement.  I wish  we  could  find  even  a two- 
page  letter  which  he  may  have  written  to  Ben  Jon- 
son,  in  London,  telling  how  his  time  passed  ; but 
there  is  nothing  — positively  nothing.  We  do  not 
know  how,  or  by  what  exposure  or  neglect  his  last 
illness  came  upon  him  and  carried  him  to  his  final 
home,  only  two  years  or  so  after  his  return  to  Strat- 
ford. Even  that  Dr.  Hall,  who  had  married  his  fa* 


84 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


vorite  daughter,  and  who  attended  him,  and  who 
published  a medical  book  containing  accounts  of  a 
thousand  and  more  cases  which  he  thought  of  con- 
sequence for  the  world  to  know  about,  has  no  word 
to  say  concerning  this  grandest  patient  that  his  eye 
ever  fell  upon. 

He  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-three.  No  descend- 
ant of  his  daughter  Susanna  is  alive ; no  descendant 
of  his  daughter  Judith  is  alive.*  The  great  new 
home  which  he  had  built  up  in  Stratford  is  torn 

* 1 append  table  from  French’s  SJiakespea/reana  Genealo-' 
gica: 

W“  Shakespeare,  b.  Apr,  23,  1664 ; 
m.  Anne  Hathaway,  b.  1556,  dau.  of  Rich^ 
and  Joan  Hathaway,  of  Shottery. 


Susanna,  b.  May,  Hamnet,  twin  with  Judith,  bapt.  Feb. 

1583,  d.  July  2,  Judith,  bapt.  Feb.  2,  2, 1585,  d.  1661 ; m. 

1649 ; m.  Jno.  Hall,  1585,  d.  s.  p.  1596.  Thos.  Quiney. 

physician,  b.  1576.  ! 

I Shakespeare  Quiney,  Rich^.  Quiney,  Thos.  Quiney, 

Elizabeth  Hall,  b.  1608 ; b.  1616.  b.  1618.  b.  1619. 

d.  s.  p.  1669. 

Elizabeth  Hall  was  twice  married : 1st  to  Thomas  Nash — 
2d  to  Jno.  Bernard  (knighted  by  Charles  II.),  and  had  no 
issue  by  either  marriage. 

Of  the  Quiney  children,  above  named,  the  1st  (Shake- 
speare), d.  in  infancy  ; the  2d  (Richard  Quiney),  d.  without 
issue,  in  1638  ; the  3d  (Thomas  Quiney),  died  the  same  year, 
1638  — also  without  issue. 


SHAKESPEARE.  85 

down  ; scarce  a vestige  of  it  remains.  The  famous 
mulberry-tree  he  planted  upon  that  greensward, 
where,  in  after  years,  Garrick  and  the  rest  held  high 
commemorative  festival,  is  gone,  root  and  branch. 

Shakespeare  — an  old  county  guide-book  tells 
us  stolidly — is  a name  unknown  in  that  region. 
Unknown ! Every  leaf  of  every  tree  whispers  it ; 
every  soaring  skylark  makes  a carol  of  it ; and 
the  memory  of  it  flows  out  thence — as  flows  the 
Stratford  river  — down  through  all  the  green  val- 
ley of  the  Avon,  down  through  all  the  green  valley 
of  the  Severn,  and  so  on,  out  to  farthest  seas,  whose 
multitudinous  waves  ” carry  it  to  every  shore. 


CHAPTER  m. 

E were  venturing  upon  almost  sacred  ground 


» » when — in  our  last  chapter  — we  had  some- 
what to  say  of  the  so-called  King  James’  Bible  ; of 
how  it  came  to  bear  that  name ; of  those  men  who 
were  concerned  in  its  translation,  and  of  certain 
literary  qualities  belonging  to  it,  which  — however 
excellent  other  and  possible  future  Bibles  may  be  — 
will  be  pretty  sure  to  keep  it  alive  for  a very  long 
time  to  come.  Next,  I spoke  of  that  king  of  the 
dramatists  who  was  born  at  Stratford.  We  followed 
him  up  to  London ; tracked  him  awhile  there  ; talked 
of  a few  familiar  aspects  of  his  life  and  character  ; 
spared  you  the  recital  of  a world  of  things — con- 
jectural or  eulogistic  — which  might  be  said  of  him  ; 
and  finally  saw  him  go  back  to  his  old  home  upon 
the  Avon,  to  play  the  retired  gentleman — last  of  all 
his  plays  — and  to  die. 


TPVO  GREAT  TITLES. 


87 


This  made  a great  coupling  of  topics  for  one 
chapter  — Shakespeare  and  the  English  Bible ! No 
two  titles  in  our  whole  range  of  talks  can  or  should 
so  interest  those  who  are  alive  to  the  felicities  of 
English  forms  of  speech,  and  who  are  eager  to  com- 
pass and  enjoy  its  largest  and  keenest  and  sim- 
plest forces  of  phrase.  No  other  vocabulary  of 
words,  and  no  other  exemplar  of  the  aptitudes  of 
language,  than  can  be  found  in  Shakespeare  and  in 
the  English  Bible  are  needed  by  those  who  would 
equip  their  English  speech  for  its  widest  reach, 
and  with  its  subtlest  or  sharpest  powers.  Out  of 
those  twin  treasuries  the  student  may  dredge  all 
the  words  he  wants,  and  all  the  turns  of  expression 
that  will  be  helpful,  in  the  writing  of  a two-page 
letter  or  in  the  unfolding  of  an  epic.  Other  books 
may  make  needful  reservoir  of  facts,  or  record  of 
theories,  or  of  literary  experimentation ; but  these 
twain  furnish  sujBScient  lingual  armament  for  all 
new  conquests  in  letters. 

We  find  ourselves  to-day  amid  a great  hurly-bur- 
ly of  dramatists,  poets,  prose-writers,  among  whom 
we  have  to  pick  our  way  — making  a descriptive 
dash  at  some  few  of  them  — seeing  the  old  pedant 


88 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  RINGS. 


of  a king  growing  more  slipshod  and  more  shaky, 
till  at  last  he  yields  the  throne  to  that  unfortunate 
son  of  his,  Charles  I.,  in  whose  time  we  shall  find 
some  new  singing-birds  in  the  fields  of  British 
poesy,  and  birds  of  a different  strain. 

Webster^  Ford,  and  Others. 

All  those  lesser  dramatists  going  immediately  be- 
fore Shakespeare,  and  coming  immediately  after  or 
with  him,  may  be  counted  in  literary  significance 
only  as  the  trail  to  that  grander  figure  which  swung 
so  high  in  the  Elizabethan  heavens  ; many  a one 
among  the  lesser  men  has  written  something  which 
has  the  true  poetic  ring  in  it,  and  is  to  be  treas- 
ured ; but  ring  however  loudly  it  may,  and  how- 
ever musically  it  may,  it  will  very  likely  have  a 
larger  and  richer  echo  somewhere  in  Shakespeare. 

Among  the  names  of  those  contemporaries  whose 
names  are  sure  of  long  survival  may  be  mentioned 
John  Webster ; a Londoner  in  all  probability ; work- 
ing at  plays  early  in  the  seventeenth  century ; his 
name  appearing  on  various  title-pages  up  to  1624 
certainly  — one  time  as  “merchant  tailor;”  and 


JOHN  WEBSTER.  89 

there  are  other  intimations  that  he  may  have  held 
some  church  “ clerkship  ; ” but  we  know  positively 
very  little  of  him.  Throughout  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury his  name  and  fame*  had  slipped  away  from 
people’s  knowledge ; somewhere  about  the  year 
1800  Charles  Lamb  gave  forth  his  mellow  piping 
of  the  dramatist’s  deservings  ; a quarter  of  a cen- 
tury later  Mr.  Dycef  wrote  and  published  what 
was  virtually  a resurrection  work  for  Webster;  and 
in  our  time  the  swift-spoken  Swinburne  transcends 
all  the  old  conventionalities  of  encyclopaedic  writ- 
ing in  declaring  this  dramatist  to  be  “hardly  ex- 
celled for  unflagging  energy  of  impression  and  of 
pathos  in  all  the  poetic  literature  of  the  world.” 

Webster  was  not  a jocund  man  ; he  seems  to 
have  taken  life  in  a hard  way ; he  swears  at  fate. 
Humane  and  pathetic  touches  there  may  be  in  his 
plays ; but  he  has  a dolorous  way  of  putting  all  the 

*The  extreme  limits  of  Ms  life  and  career  would  prob- 
ably lie  between  1575  and  1635 ; StraliarCs  Biographical 
Dictionary  of  tbe  last  century  makes  no  mention  of  Mm ; 
nor  does  the  Biographic  TJnwerselle  of  as  early  date. 

f Works  of  John  Webster  ; with  some  account  of  the 
Author,  and  Notes,  by  Rev.  A.  Dyce  (original  edition, 
1830). 


90 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


humanities  to  simmer  in  a great  broth  of  crime. 
At  least  this  may  not  be  unfairly  said  of  his  chiefest 
works,  and  those  by  which  he  is  best  known  — the 
“ Vittoria  Corombona”  and  the  ‘‘Duchess  of  Malfi.’" 
There  are  blood-curdling  scenes  in  them  through 
which  one  is  led  by  a guidance  that  is  as  strenuous 
as  it  is  fascinating.  The  drapery  is  in  awful  keep- 
ing with  the  trend  of  the  story  ; the  easy  murders 
hardly  appal  one,  and  the  breezes  that  fan  the  air 
seem  to  come  from  the  flutter  of  bat-like,  leaden 
wings,  hiding  the  blue.  There  are,  indeed,  won- 
drous flashes  of  dramatic  power  ; by  whiles,  too, 
there  are  refreshing  openings-out  to  the  light  or  sin- 
lessness of  common  day  — a lifting  of  thought  and 
consciousness  up  from  the  great  welter  of  crime 
and  crime’s  entanglements ; but  there  is  little 
brightness,  sparse  sunshine,  rare  panoply  of  green 
or  blooming  things ; even  the  flowers  are  put  to 
sad  oflSces,  and 

“ do  cover 

The  friendless  bodies  of  nnburied  men.*’ 

When  a man’s  flower  culture  gets  reduced  to  such 
narrow  margin  as  this  it  does  not  carry  exhilarat- 
ing odors  with  it. 


JOHN  FORD.  91 

John  Ford^  was  another  name  much  coupled  in 
those  and  succeeding  days  with  that  of  Webster  ; 
he  was  indeed  associated  with  him  in  some  of  his 
work,  as  also  with  Dekker.  He  was  a man  of 
Devonshire  birth,  of  good  family ; — a little  over- 
boastful of  being  above  any  want  for  money ; ’’ 
showing  traces,  indeed,  of  coarse  arrogance,  and 
swaying  dramatically  into  coarse  brutalities.  He, 
too,  was  borne  down  by  enslavement  to  the  red 
splendors  of  crime  ; his  very  titles  carry  such  fore- 
taste of  foulness  we  do  not  name  them.  There  are 
bloody  horrors  and  moral  ones.  Few  read  him  for 
love.  Murder  makes  room  for  incest,  and  incest 
sharpens  knives  for  murder.  Animal  passions  run 
riot ; the  riot  is  often  splendid,  but  never  — to  my 
mind — making  head  in  such  grand  dramatic  ut- 
terance as  crowns  the  gory  numbers  of  Webster. 
There  are  strong  passages,  indeed,  gleaming  out  of 
the  red  riotings  like  blades  of  steel ; now  and  then 
some  fine  touch  of  pathos  — of  quiet  contemplative 
brooding  — lying  amid  the  fiery  wrack,  like  a 
violet  on  banks  drenched  with  turbid  floods  ; but 

*Ford,  b.  about  1586,  and  d.  1640.  Works  edited  by 
Gifford  ; revised,  with  Dyce’s  notes,  1869. 


92  LANDS,  LETTERS,  6-  KINGS. 

they  are  rare,  and  do  not  compensate  — at  least 
do  not  compensate  me  — for  the  wadings  through 
bloody,  foul  quagmires  to  reach  them. 

Marston  — another  John*  — if  not  up  to  the 
tragic  level  of  the  two  last  named,  had  various 
talent ; wrote  satires,  parodies ; his  Image  of  Pyg- 
malion had  the  honor  of  being  publicly  burned  ; he 
wrought  with  Jonson  on  Eastward  Hoe  ! won  the 
piping  praises  of  Charles  Lamb  in  our  century,  also 
of  Hazlitt,  and  the  eulogies  of  later  and  lesser  crit- 
ics. But  he  is  coarse,  unequal,  little  read  now.  I 
steal  a piquant  bit  of  his  satire  on  metaphysic  study 
from  What  you  Will;  it  reminds  of  the  frolic  moods 
of  Browning  : 

“I  wasted  lamp  oil,  bated  my  flesh, 

Shrunk  up  my  veins,  and  still  my  spaniel  slept ; 

And  still  I held  converse  with  Zabarell, 

Aquinas,  Scotus,  and  the  musty  saws 
Of  antique  Donate  : — still  my  spaniel  slept. 

Still  on  went  I : first,  an  sit  anima, 

Then,  an’  ’twere  mortal.  O hold,  hold  I 
At  that  they  are  at  brain  buffets,  fell  by  the  ears 
Amain  [pell-mell]  together  — still  my  spaniel  slept. 


* John  Marston,  b.  1565  (?)  ; d.  about  1634  ; believed  to 
have  been  a Shropshire  man,  and  one  while  of  Brasenose 
College,  Oxford. 


MASSINGER  FLETCHER. 


93 


Then,  whether  ’twere  corporeal,  local,  fixed, 

Ex  traduce  ; but  whether ’t  had  free  will 
Or  no,  hot  philosophers 

Stood  banding  factions,  all  so  strongly  propped, 

I staggered,  knew  not  which  was  firmer  part ; 

But  thought,  quoted,  read,  observed,  and  pried, 
Stuffed  noting  books,  — and  still  my  spaniel  slept. 
At  length  he  waked,  and  yawned,  and  by  yon  sky, 
For  aught  I know,  he  knew  as  much  as  1.” 


Massinger^  Beaumont^  and  Fletcher. 

Some  dozen  or  more  existing  plays  are  attribut- 
ed to  Philip  Massinger,*  and  he  was  doubtless 
the  author  of  many  others  now  unknown  save  by 
name.  Of  Wiltshire  birth,  his  father  had  been  de- 
pendant, or  protege  of  the  Pembroke  family,  and 
the  Christian  name  of  Philip  very  likely  kept  alive 
the  paternal  reverence  for  the  great  Philip  Sidney. 
Though  Massinger  was  an  industrious  writer,  and 
was  well  accredited  in  his  time,  it  is  certain  that  he 
had  many  hard  struggles,  and  passed  through  many 
a pinching  day ; and  at  the  last  it  would  appear  that 

* Philip  Massinger,  b.  1584 ; d.  1640.  His  works  were 
edited  by  Gifford,  and  on  this  edition  is  based  the  later  one 
of  Col.  Cunningham  (1870). 


94 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


he  found  burial,  only  as  an  outsider  and  stranger, 
in  that  old  church  of  St.  Saviours,  near  to  London 
Bridge,  where  we  found  John  Gower  laid  to  rest 
with  his  books  for  pillow.  If  Massinger  did  not 
lift  his  lines  into  such  gleams  of  tragic  intensity  as 
we  spoke  of  in  Webster  and  in  Ford,  he  gave  good, 
workman-like  finish  to  his  dramas  ; and  for  bloody 
apparelling  of  his  plots,  I think  there  are  murder- 
ous zealots,  in  his  Sforza  * story  at  least,  who 
could  fairly  have  clashed  swords  with  the  assassins 
of  ‘‘Vittoria  Corombona.”  It  is  a large  honor  to 
Massinger  that  of  all  the  dramas  I have  named  — 
outside  some  few  of  Shakespeare’s  — no  one  is  so 
well  known  to  modern  play-goers  as  the  ‘‘  New  Way 
to  Pay  Old  Debts.”  The  character  of  Sir  Giles 
Overreach  does  not  lose  its  terrible  significance. 
In  our  times,  as  in  the  old  times, 

“He  frights  men  out  of  their  estates, 

And  breaks  through  all  law-nets  — made  to  curb  ill  men  — 
As  they  were  cobwebs.” 

When  Massinger  died  tradition  says  that  he  was 
thrust  into  the  same  grave  which  had  been  opened 


• “ The  Duke  of  Milan. 


BEAUMONT  FLETCHER. 


95 


shortly  before  for  John  Fletcher;  if  not  joined 
there,  these  two  had  certainly  been  fellows  in  lit- 
erary work  ; and  there  are  those  who  think  that  the 
name  of  Massinger  should  have  recognition  in  that 
great  dramatic  copartnery  under  style  of  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher.*  Certain  it  is  that  other 
writers  had  share  in  the  work  ; among  them  — in 
at  least  one  instance  (that  of  “ Two  Noble  Kins- 
men ”)  — the  fine  hand  of  Shakespeare. 

But  whatever  helping  touches  or  of  outside 
journey-work  may  have  been  contributed  to  that 
mass  of  plays  which  bears  name  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  it  is  certain  that  they  hold  of  right  that 
brilliant  reputation  for  deft  and  lively  and  winning 
dramatic  work  which  put  their  popularity  before 
Jonson’s,  if  not  before  Shakespeare’s.  The  coup- 
ling together  of  this  pair  of  authors  at  their  work 
has  the  air  of  romance  ; both  were  well  born  ; 
Fletcher,  son  of  a bishop ; Beaumont,  son  of  Sir 
Francis  Beaumont,  of  Grace-Dieu  (not  far  away 
from  Ashby-de-la-Zouch)  ; both  were  university 
men,  and  though  differing  in  age  by  eight  or  nine 

* John  Fletcher,  b.  1579  ; d.  1625.  Francis  Beaumont, 
son  of  Sir  Francis  Beaumont,  b.  (probably)  1585  ; d.  1616. 


96 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


years,  yet  coming  — very  likely  through  the  good 
oflSices  of  Ben  Jonson  — to  that  sharing  of  home  and 
work  and  wardrobe  which  the  old  gossip  Aubrey  * 
has  delighted  in  picturing.  They  wrought  charm- 
ingly together,  and  with  such  a nice  welding  of 
jointures,  that  literary  craftsmen,  of  whatever  as- 
tuteness, are  puzzled  to  say  where  the  joinings 
lie.  In  agreement,  however,  with  opinions  of  best 
critics,  it  may  be  said  that  Beaumont  (the  younger, 
who  died  nine  years  before  his  mate)  was  pos- 
sessed of  the  deeper  poetic  fervors,  while  Fletcher 
was  wider  in  fertilities  and  larger  in  affluence  of 
diction. 

The  dramatic  horrors  of  Ford  and  Webster  are 
softened  in  the  lines  of  these  later  playwrights. 
These  are  debonair  ; they  are  lively  ; they  are  jo- 


* Aubrey,  who  died  in  1697,  and  who  is  often  cited,  was 
an  antiquary  — not  always  to  be  relied  upon  — an  Oxford 
man,  friend  of  Thomas  Hobbes,  was  heir  to  sundry  coun- 
try estates,  which,  through  defective  titles,  involved  him 
in  suits,  that  brought  him  to  grief.  He  was  a diligent 'col- 
lector of  “whim- whams”  — very  credulous;  supplied  An- 
thony a Wood  (1632-1695)  with  much  of  his  questionable 
material  ; and  kept  up  friendly  relations  with  a great  many 
cultivated  and  literary  people. 


BEAUMONT  &-  FLETCHER, 


97 


cund ; they  tell  stories  that  have  a beginning  and 
an  end ; they  pique  attention  ; there  are  delicacies, 
too,  and  — it  must  be  said  — a good  many  indelica- 
cies ; there  are  light-virtued  women,  and  marital 
infelicities  get  an  easy  ripening  toward  the  over- 
ripeness and  rottenness  that  is  to  come  in  Kestora- 
tion  times.  These  twain  were  handsome  fellows, 
by  Aubrey's  and  all  other  accounts  ; Beaumont  most 
noticeably  so ; and  Fletcher  — brightly  swarthy, 
red-haired,  full-blooded  — dying  a bachelor  and  of 
the  plague,  down  in  the  time  of  Charles  L,  and 
thrust  hastily  into  the  grave  at  St.  Saviours,  where 
Massinger  presently  followed  him. 

I must  give  at  least  one  taste  of  the  dramatic 
manner  for  which  both  of  these  men  were  sponsors. 
It  is  from  the  well-known  play  of  “ Philaster  ” that 
I quote,  where  Euphrasia  tells  of  the  tender  dis- 
covery of  what  stirred  her  heart : — 

‘ ‘ My  father  oft  would  speak 
Your  worth  and  virtue  : And  as  I did  grow 
More  and  more  apprehensive,  I did  thirst 
To  see  the  man  so  praised ; hut  yet  all  this 
Was  but  a maiden  longing,  to  be  lost 
As  soon  as  found  ; till,  sitting  in  my  window 
Printing  my  thoughts  in  lawn,  I saw  a god 


98 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


I thought  (but  it  was  you)  enter  our  gates. 

My  blood  flew  out,  and  back  again  as  fast 
As  I had  puffed  it  forth  and  sucked  it  in 
Like  breath.  Then  was  I called  away  in  haste 
To  entertain  you.  Never  was  a man 
Heaved  from  a sheep-cote  to  a sceptre,  raised 
So  high  in  thoughts  as  I : 

I did  hear  you  talk 

Far  above  singing ! After  you  were  gone, 

I grew  acquainted  with  my  heart,  and  searched 
What  stirred  it  so.  Alas,  I found  it  Love  I ** 

Nothing  better  in  its  way  can  be  found  in  all 
their  plays.  One  mentioning  word,  however,  should 
be  given  to  those  delightful  lyrical  aptitudes,  by 
virtue  of  which  the  blithe  and  easy  metric  felici- 
ties of  Elizabethan  days  were  overlaid  in  tendrils 
of  song  upon  the  Carolan  times.  I wish,  too,  that 
I had  space  for  excerpts  from  that  jolly  pastoral  of 
The  Faithful  Shepherdess  — bewildering  in  its  easy 
gaieties,  and  its  cumulated  classicisms  — and  which 
lends  somewhat  of  its  deft  caroling,  and  of  its  arch 
conceits  to  the  later  music  of  Milton’s  ‘^Comus.” 
Another  foretaste  of  Milton  comes  to  us  in  these 
words  of  Fletcher : — 

“Hence,  all  you  vain  delights, 

As  short  as  are  the  nights 


KING  JAMES  AGAIN 


99 


Wherein  you  spend  your  folly  ! 

There’s  nought  in  this  life,  sweet, 

If  man  were  wise  to  see’t, 

But  only  melancholy, 

O sweetest  melancholy ! 

Welcome  folded  arms  and  fixed  eyes, 

A sigh  that  piercing  mortifies, 

A look  that’s  fastened  to  the  ground, 

A tongue  chain’d  up  without  a sound  I 
Fountain  heads  and  pathless  groves. 

Places  which  pale  passion  loves  I 
Moonlight  walks,  when  all  the  fowls 
Are  warmly  hous’d  save  hats  and  owls ! 

A midnight  hell,  a parting  groan, 

These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon  ; 

Then  stretch  our  hones  in  a still  gloomy  valley  ; 
Nothing’s  so  dainty  sweet  as  lovely  melancholy.”* 


King  James  and  Family. 

Meanwhile,  how  are  London  and  England  getting 
on  with  their  ram-shackle  dotard  of  a King  ? Not 
well ; not  proudly.  Englishmen  were  not  as  boast- 
ful of  being  Englishmen  as  in  the  days  when  the 
virgin  Elizabeth  queened  it,  and  shattered  the  Span- 
ish Armada,  and  made  her  will  and  England’s  power 

* From  the  “Nice  Valour  or  the  Passionate  Madman.” 
By  Seward  this  comedy  is  ascribed  to  Beaumont. 


lOO 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


respected  everywhere.  James,  indeed,  had  a son, 
Prince  Henry,  who  promised  far  better  things  for 
England,  and  for  the  Stuart  name,  than  his  pedant 
of  a father. 

This  son  was  a friend  of  Ealeigh’s  (would,  maybe 
have  saved  that  great  man  from  the  scaffold,  if  he 
had  lived),  a friend,  too,  of  all  the  high-minded, 
far-seeing  ones  who  best  represented  Elizabethan 
enterprise;  but  he  died,  poor  fellow,  at  nineteen, 
leaving  the  heirship  to  that  Charles  L whose  dis- 
mal history  you  know.  James  had  also  a daugh- 
ter — Elizabeth  — a high-spirited  maiden,  who, 
amid  brilliant  fetes  made  in  her  honor,  married  that 
Frederic,  Elector  Palatine,  who  received  his  bride 
in  the  magnificent  old  castle,  you  will  remember 
at  Heidelberg.  There  they  show  still  the  great 
gateway  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  clad  in  ivy,  and 
the  Elizabeth  gardens.  ’Twas  said  that  her  ambi- 
tion and  high  spirit  pushed  the  poor  Elector  into 
political  complications  that  ruined  him,  and  that 
made  the  once  owner  of  that  princely  chateau  an 
outcast,  and  almost  a beggar.  The  King,  too,  by 
his  vanities,  his  indifference,  and  cowardice,  helped 
largely  the  discomfiture  of  this  branch  of  his  fam- 


KING  JAMES. 


lOI 


ily,  as  he  did  by  his  wretched  bringing  up  of 
Charles  pave  the  way  for  that  monarch’s  march  into 
the  gulf  of  ruin. 

In  foreign  politics  this  weak  king  coquetted  in  a 
childish  way  — sometimes  with  the  Catholic  powers  ; 
sometimes  with  the  Protestant  powers  of  Middle 
Europe ; and  at  home,  with  a ridiculous  sense  of 
his  own  importance,  he  angered  the  Presbyterians 
of  Scotland  and  the  Puritans  of  England  by  his 
perpetual  interferences.  He  provoked  the  emigra- 
tion that  was  planting,  year  by  year,  a New  England 
west  of  the  Atlantic ; he  harried  the  House  of  Com- 
mons into  an  antagonism  which,  by  its  growth 
and  earnestness  was,  by  and  by,  to  upset  his  throne 
and  family  together.  His  power  was  the  power  of 
a blister  that  keeps  irritating  — and  not  like  Eliza- 
beth’s — the  power  of  a bludgeon  that  thwacks  and 
makes  an  end. 

And  in  losing  respect  this  King  gained  no  love. 
Courtiers  could  depend  on  his  promises  as  little  as 
kingdoms.  He  chose  his  favorites  for  a fine  coat, 
or  a fine  face,  and  thereafter,  from  sheer  indolence 
yielded  to  them  in  everything.  In  personal  habits, 
too,  he  grew  more  and  more  unbearable  ; his  doub- 


102 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


lets  were  all  dirtier  ; his  wigs  shabbier  ; his  coarse 
jokes  coarser ; his  tipsiness  frequenter.  A foulness 
grew  up  in  the  court  which  tempted  such  men  as 
Fletcher  and  Massinger  to  fouler  ways  of  speech, 
and  which  lured  such  creatures  as  Lady  Essex  to 
ruin.  A pretty  sort  of  King  was  this  to  preach 
against  tobacco  ! 

James  had  given  up  poetry-writing,  in  which  he 
occasionally  indulged  before  coming  to  England  ; 
yet  he  had  poetical  tastes  ; he  enjoyed  greatly 
many  of  Shakespeare’s  plays ; Ben  Jonson,  too,  was 
a pet  of  his,  and  had  easy  access  to  royalty,  cer- 
tainly until  his  quarrel  with  the  great  court  archi- 
tect, Inigo  Jones.  But,  as  in  all  else,  the  King’s 
taste  in  poetry  grew  coarser  as  he  grew  older,  and 
he  showed  a great  liking  for  a certain  John  Taylor,* 
called  “the  Water-Poet,”  a rough,  coarse  creature, 
who  sculled  boats  across  the  Thames  for  hire  ; who 
made  a foot-trip  into  Scotland  in  rivalry  of  Ben 


♦ John  Taylor,  b.  1580 ; d.  1654.  Various  papers  and 
poems  (so  called)  of  his  are  printed  in  vol.  ii.  of  Hindley’s 
Old  Book  Collecto7'’'s  Miscellany,  London,  1872.  The  Spenser 
Society  has  also  printed  an  edition  of  his  works,  in  5 vols., 
1870-78. 


JOHN  TAYLOR.  103 

Jonson,  and  who  wrote  a Very  merry  wherry 
Voyage  from  London  to  Yorhy  and  a Kecksy-Win- 
sey,  or  a Lerry-cum-twang,  which  you  will  not 
find  in  your  treasures  of  literature,  but  which  the 
leering  King  loved  to  laugh  over  in  his  cups.  Tay- 
lor afterward  was  keeper  of  a rollicking,  Eoyalist 
tavern  in  Oxford,  and  of  another  in  London,  where 
he  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-four. 

Tobacco,  first  introduced  in  Ealeigh’s  early  voy- 
aging times,  came  to  have  a little  fund  of  literature 
crystallizing  about  it  — what  with  histories  of  its  in- 
troduction and  properties,  and  onslaughts  upon  it. 
Bobadil,  the  braggart,  in  ‘‘Every  Man  in  his 
Humor,”  says  : “I  have  been  in  the  Indies  (where 
this  herbe  growes),  where  neither  myself  nor  a 
dozen  gentlemen  more  (of  my  knowledge)  have 
received  the  taste  of  any  other  nutriment,  in  the 
world,  for  the  space  of  one  and  twenty  weeks,  but 
Tobacco  only.  Therefore  it  cannot  be,  but  ’tis  most 
Divine.” 

There  were  many  curious  stories  afloat  too  — 
taking  different  shapes  — of  the  great  apprehen- 
sion ignorant  ones  felt  on  seeing  people  walking 
about,  as  first  happened  in  these  times,  with  smoke 


104 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  6-  KINGS, 


pouring  from  their  mouths  and  noses.  In  an  old 
book  called  The  English  Hue  and  Crie  (printed  about 
1610),  it  takes  something  like  this  form  : 

“ A certain  Welcliman,  coming  newly  to  London,  and  be- 
holding one  to  take  Tobacco,  never  seeing  the  like  before, 
and  not  knowing  the  manner  of  it,  but  perceiving  him  vent 
smoak  so  fast,  and  supposing  his  inward  parts  to  be  on  fire, 
screamed  an  alarm,  and  dashed  over  him  a big  pot  of 
Beer.” 

King  James’  Gounterhlaste  to  the  Use  of  Tobacco, 
had  about  the  same  efficacy  with  the  Welshman’s 
beer-pot.  But  to  show  the  King’s  method  of  argu- 
ing, I give  one  little  whiff  of  it.  Tobacco-lovers  of 
that  day  alleged  that  it  cleared  the  head  and  body 
of  ugly  rheums  and  distillations  ; 

“But,”  says  the  King,  “ the  fallacy  of  this  argument  may 
easily  appeare,  by  my  late  preceding  description  of  the  skyey  * 
meteors.  For  even  as  the  smoaky  Vapors  sucked  up  by  the 
sunne  and  stay’d  in  the  lowest  and  colde  region  of  the  Ay  re, 
are  there  contracted  into  clouds,  and  turned  into  Raine,  and 
such  other  watery  meteors : so  this  nasty  smoke  sucked  up 
by  the  Nose,  and  imprisoned  in  the  cold  and  moist  braines, 
is  by  their  colde  and  wet  faculty,  turned  and  cast  forth 
againe  in  watery  distillations,  and  so  are  you  made  free  and 
purged  of  nothing,  but  that  wherewith  you  wilfully  burdened 
yourselves.” 


A NEW  KING. 


105 


Is  it  any  wonder  people  kept  on  smoking  ? He 
reasoned  in  much  the  same  way  about  church  mat- 
ters ; is  it  any  wonder  the  Scotch  would  not  have 
Anglicanism  thrust  upon  them  ? 

The  King  died  at  last  (1625),  aged  fifty-nine,  at 
his  palace  of  Theobalds,  a little  out  of  London,  and 
very  famous,  as  I have  said,  for  its  fine  gardens ; 
and  these  gardens  this  prematurely  old  and  shat- 
tered man  did  greatly  love ; loved  perhaps  more 
than  his  children.  I do  not  think  Charles  mourned 
for  him  very  grievously  ; but,  of  a surety  there  was 
no  warrant  for  the  half-hinted  allegation  of  Milton’s 
(at  a later  day)  that  the  royal  son  was  concerned  in 
some  parricidal  scheme.  There  was,  however,  no- 
where great  mourning  for  James. 

A New  King  and  some  Literary  Survivors. 

The  new  King,  his  son,  was  a well-built  young 
fellow  of  twenty-five,  of  fine  appearance,  well  taught, 
and  just  on  the  eve  of  his  marriage  to  Henrietta  of 
France.  He  had  a better  taste  than  his  father,  and 
lived  a more  orderly  life  ; indeed,  he  was  every  way 
decorous  save  in  an  obstinate  temper  and  in  absurd 


io6  LANDS,  LETTERS^  KINGS. 

notions  about  his  kingly  prerogative.  He  loved 
play-going  and  he  loved  poetry,  though  not  so  ac- 
cessible as  his  father  had  been  to  the  buffoonery  of 
the  water-poet  Taylor,  or  the  tipsy  obeisance  of  old 
Ben  Jonson.  For  Ben  Jonson  was  still  living,  not 
yet  much  over  fifty,  though  with  his  great  bulk  and 
reeling  gait  seeming  nearer  seventy ; now,  too,  since 
Shakespeare  is  gone,  easily  at  the  head  of  all  the  lit- 
erary workers  in  London  ; indeed,  in  some  sense 
always  at  the  head  by  reason  of  his  dogged  self- in- 
sistence and  his  braggadocio.  All  the  street  world  * 
knows  him,  as  he  swaggers  along  the  Strand  to  his 
new  jolly  rendezvous  at  the  Devil  Tavern,  near  St. 
Dunstan’s,  in  Fleet  Street  — not  far  off  from  the 
Temple  Church  — where  he  and  his  fellows  meet  in 
the  Apollo  Chamber,  over  whose  door  Ben  has  writ- 
ten : 

“ Welcome,  all  who  lead  or  follow 
To  the  oracle  of  Apollo ! 

Here  he  speaks  out  of  his  pottle 
On  the  tripos  — his  tower-bottle,”  etc. 

Of  all  we  have  named  hitherto  among  the  Eliza- 
bethan poets,  the  only  ones  who  would  be  likely  to 

* London  was  not  over-large  at  this  day  ; its  population 
counted  about  175,000. 


JAMES  HOWELL.  107 

appear  there  in  Charles  L’s  time  would  be  George 
Chapman,  of  the  Homer  translation  ; staid  and  very 
old  now,  with  snowy  hair  \ and  Dekker  — what  time 
he  was  out  of  prison  for  debt ; possibly,  too,  John 
Marston.  Poor  Ben  Jonson  wrote  about  this  time 
his  last  play,  which  did  not  take  either  with  court- 
iers or  the  public  ; whereupon  the  old  grumbler 
was  more  rough  than  ever,  and  died  a few  years 
thereafter,  wretchedly  poor,  and  was  put  into  the 
ground  — upright,  tradition  says,  as  into  a well — in 
Westminster  Abbey.  There  one  may  walk  over  his 
name  and  his  crown  ; and  this  is  the  last  we  shall 
see  of  him,  whose  swagger  has  belonged  to  three 
reigns. 

Among  other  writers  known  to  these  times  and 
who  went  somewhiles  to  these  suppers  at  the  Apollo 
was  James  Howell,*  notable  because  he  wrote  so 
much  ; and  I specially  name  him  because  he  was  the 
earliest  and  best  type  of  what  we  should  call  a hack- 
writer ; ready  for  anything ; a shrewd  salesman, 
too,  of  all  he  did  write  ; travelling  largely  — having 

* James  Howell,  b.  1594  ; d.  1666.  He  was  son  of  a min- 
ister in  Carmarthenshire,  and  took  his  degree  at  Oxford  in 
1613. 


io8  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

modern  instincts,  I think  ; making  small  capital  — 
whether  of  learning  or  money  — reach  enormously. 
He  was  immensely  popular,  too,  in  his  day ; a 
Welshman  by  birth,  and  never  wrote  at  all  till  past 
forty  ; but  afterward  he  kept  at  it  with  a terrible 
pertinacity.  He  gives  quaint  advice  about  foreign 
travel,  with  some  shrewdness  cropping  out  in  it. 
Thus  of  languages  he  says  : 

“Whereas,  for  other  Tongues  one  may  attaine  to  speak 
them  to  very  good  purpose,  and  get  their  good  will  at  any 
age  ; the  French  tongue,  by  reason  of  the  huge  difference 
’twixt  their  writing  and  speaking,  will  put  one  often  into  fits 
of  despaire  and  passion  ; but  the  Learner  must  not  be  daunted 
a whit  at  that,  but  after  a little  intermission  hee  must  come 
on  more  strongly,  and  with  a pertinacity  of  resolution  set 
upon  her  againe  and  againe,  and  woo  her  as  one  would  do  a 
coy  mistress,  with  a kind  of  importunity,  until  he  over-mas- 
ter her : She  will  be  very  plyable  at  last.  ” 

Then  he  says,  for  improvement,  it  is  well  to  have 
the  acquaintance  of  some  ancient  nun,  with  whom 
one  may  talk  through  the  grated  windows  — for  they 
have  all  the  news,  and  they  will  entertain  discourse 
till  one  be  weary,  if  one  bestow  on  them  now  and 
then  some  small  bagatells — as  English  Gloves,  or 
Knives,  or  Eibands  — and  before  hee  go  over. 


WOTTON  &»  WALTON. 


109 


hee  must  furnish  himself  with  such  small  curiosi- 
ties.” 

The  expenses  of  travel  in  that  day  on  the  Conti- 
nent, he  says,  for  a young  fellow  who  has  his  ‘‘  Bid- 
ing and  Dancing  and  Fencing,  and  Eacket,  and 
Coach-hire,  with  apparel  and  other  casual  charges 
will  be  about  £300  per  annum  ” — which  sum  (allow- 
ing for  differences  in  moneyed  values)  may  have 
been  a matter  of  $6,000.  He  says  with  great  apt- 
ness, too,  that  the  traveller  must  not  neglect  letter- 
writing, which 

‘ ‘ he  should  do  exactly  and  not  carelessly  : For  letters  are 
the  ideas  and  truest  mirrors  of  the  mind  ; they  show  the  in- 
side of  a man  and  how  he  improveth  himself.*’ 


Wotton  and  Walton. 

Another  great  traveller  of  these  times  — but  one 
whose  dignities  would,  I suspect  have  kept  him  away 
from  the  Devil  Tavern  — was  Sir  Henry  Wotton.* 
He  was  a man  who  had  supplemented  his  university 
training  by  long  residence  abroad ; who  had  been  of 

* Of  an  ancient  county  family  in  Mid-Kent : b.  1568  ; d. 
1639. 


no 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


service  to  King  James  (before  the  King  had  yet  left 
Scotland)  by  divulging  to  him  and  defeating  some 
purposed  scheme  of  poisoning.  Wotton  was,  later, 
English  ambassador  at  the  brilliant  court  of  Venice, 
whence  he  wrote  to  the  King  many  suggestions 
respecting  the  improvement  of  his  garden,  detailing 
Italian  methods,  and  forwarding  grafts  and  rare 
seedlings ; he  was  familiar  with  most  European 
courts — hobnobbed  with  Doges  and  with  Kings, 
was  a scholar  of  elegant  and  various  accomplish- 
ments, and  the  reputed  maker  of  that  old  and  well- 
worn  witticism  about  ambassadors  — that  they 
were  honest  men,  sent  to  lie  abroad  for  the  good  of 
their  country.”  He  was,  furthermore,  himself  boast- 
ful of  the  authorship  of  this  prickly  saying,  ‘‘  The 
itch  of  disputation  is  the  scab  of  the  church.”* 
There  is  also  a charming  little  poem  of  his  — which 
gets  place  in  the  anthologies  — addressed  to  that 
Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Bohemia,  whom  we  encoun- 
tered as  a bride  at  the  Castle  of  Heidelberg,  and 
who  became  the  mother  of  the  accomplished  and 

* In  his  will  he  suggested  this  epitaph  to  be  put  over  his 
grave : ''  Hie  jacet  hujus  sententice  primm  auctor,  Disputandi 
Pruritus  EcclesuB  ScahiesT 


IZAAK  WALTON. 


Ill 


daring  Prince  Eupert.  Such  a man  as  Wotton, 
full  of  anecdote,  bristling  with  wit,  familiar  with 
courts,  and  one  who  could  match  phrases  with 
James,  or  Charles,  or  Buckingham,  in  Latin,  or 
French,  or  Italian,  must  have  been  a god-send  for 
a dinner-party  at  Theobalds,  or  at  Whitehall.  To 
crown  his  graces,  Walton  ^ tells  us  that  he  was  an 
excellent  fisherman. 

And  this  mention  of  the  quiet  Angler  tempts  me 
to  enroll  him  here,  a little  before  his  time  ; yet  he 
was  well  past  thirty  when  James  died,  and  must 
have  been  busy  in  the  ordering  of  his  draper’s  shop 
in  Fleet  Street  when  Charles  I.  came  to  power. 
He  was  of  Staffordshire  birth,  and  no  millinery  of 
the  city  could  have  driven  out  of  his  mind  the 
pretty  ruralities  of  his  Staffordshire  home,  and  the 
lovely  far-off  views  of  the  Welsh  hills.  His  first 
wife  was  grandniece  of  Bishop  Cranmer ; he  was 
himself  friend  of  Dr.  Donne,  to  whom  he  listened 
from  Sunday  to  Sunday  ; a second  wife  was  sister  of 
that  Thomas  Ken  who  came  to  be  Bishop  of  Bath 
and  Wells ; so  he  was  hemmed  in  by  ecclesiasti- 
cisms,  and  loved  them  as  he  loved  trout.  He  was 


* Izaak  Walton,  b.  1593  ; d.  1683. 


II2 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


'warm  Eoyalisfc  always,  and  lived  by  old  traditions  in 
Church  and  State — not  easily  overset  byEeformers. 
No  fine  fioral  triumphs  of  any  new  gardeners,  how- 
ever accredited,  could  blind  him  to  the  old  glories 
of  the  eglantine  or  of  a damask  rose.  A good  and 
quiet  friend,  a placid  book,  a walk  under  trees, 
made  sufficient  regalement  for  him.  These,  with  a 
fishing  bout  (by  way  of  exceptional  entertainment), 
and  a Sunday  in  a 'village  church,  with  the  Litany 
well  intoned,  were  all  in  all  to  him.  His  book 
holds  spicy  place  among  ranks  of  books,  as  lavender 
keeps  fresh  odor  among  stores  of  linen.  It  is 
worth  any  man’s  dalliance  with  the  fishing-craft  to 
make  him  receptive  to  the  simplicities  and  limpid- 
ities of  Walton’s  Angler,  I am  tempted  to  say  of 
him  again,  what  I have  said  of  him  before  in  other 
connection:  — very  few  fine  'writers  of  our  time 
could  make  a better  book  on  such  a subject  to-day, 
with  all  the  added  information  and  all  the  practice 
of  the  newspaper  columns.  What  Walton  wants  to 
say,  he  says.  You  can  make  no  mistake  about  his 
meaning ; all  is  as  lucid  as  the  water  of  a spring. 
He  does  not  play  upon  your  wonderment  with 
tropes.  There  is  no  chicane  of  the  pen ; he  has 


IZAAK  WALTON. 


some  pleasant  matters  to  tell  of,  and  lie  tells  of 
them  — straight. 

Another  great  charm  about  Walton  is  his  child- 
like truthfulness.  I think  he  is  almost  the  only 
earnest  trout-fisher  (unless  Sir  Humphry  Davy  be 
excepted)  whose  report  could  be  relied  upon  for 
the  weight  of  a trout.  I have  many  excellent 
friends  — capital  fishermen  — whose  word  is  good 
upon  most  concerns  of  life,  but  in  this  one  thing 
they  cannot  be  religiously  confided  in.  I excuse 
it ; I take  off  twenty  per  cent,  from  their  estimates 
without  either  hesitation,  anger,  or  reluctance. 

I must  not  omit  to  mention  his  charming  bio- 
graphic sketches  (rather  than  “ lives  ”)  of  Hooker, 
of  Wotton,  of  Herbert,  of  Donne  — the  letterpress  of 
all  these  flowing  easily  and  limpidly  as  the  brooks 
he  loved  to  picture.  He  puts  in  very  much  pretty 
embroidery  too,  for  which  tradition  or  street 
gossip  supplied  him  with  his  needs,  in  figure  and 
in  color ; this  is  not  always  of  best  authenticity,  it 
is  true  ; ^ but  who  wishes  to  question  when  it  is 

* Statements  about  George  Herbert,  in  the  matter  of  the 
Melville  controversy,  are  specially  to  be  doubted.  Of  Ben 
Jonson  he  says  : “ He  lived  with  a woman  that  governed 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  6^  KINGS. 


1 14 

the  simple-souled  and  always  honest  Walton  who  is 
talking  ? And  as  for  his  great  pastoral  of  The  Com- 
plete Angler  — to  read  it,  in  whatever  season,  is  like 
plunging  into  country  air,  and  sauntering  through 
lovely  country  solitudes. 

I name  Sir  Thomas  Overbury* *  — who  was  the 
first,  I think,  to  make  that  often-repeated  joke  re- 
specting people  who  boasted  of  their  ancestry,  say- 
ing “ they  were  like  potatoes,  with  the  best  part 
below  ground” — because  he  belonged  to  this  pe- 
riod, and  was  a man  of  elegant  culture  and  literary 
promise.  He  was  poisoned  in  the  Tower  at  the  in- 
stance of  some  great  people  about  the  court  of 
James,  who  feared  damaging  testimony  of  his  upon 
a trial  that  was  just  then  to  come  off ; and  this  trial 
and  poisoning  business,  in  which  (Carr)  Somerset 
and  Lady  Essex  were  deeply  concerned,  made  one 

him,  near  Westminster  Abbey,  and  neither  he  nor  she  took 
much  care  for  next  week,  and  would  be  sure  not  to  want 
wine  ; of  which  he  usually  took  too  much  before  he  went 
to  bed,  if  not  oftener  and  sooner — all  which  shows  a pretty 
accessibility  to  gossip. 

* Overbury,  b.  1581  ; d.  1613  (poisoned  in  London  Tower). 
Eimbault’s  Life,  1856 ; also  Strahan’s  Biographical  BicUon- 
ary,  1784. 


GEORGE  HERBERT. 


115 


of  the  greatest  scandals  of  the  scandalous  court  of 
King  James.  Overbury’s  Charax)ters  are  the  best 
known  of  his  writings,  but  they  are  slight ; quaint 
metaphors  and  tricksy  English  are  in  them,  with 
a good  many  tiresome  affectations  of  speech.  What 
he  said  of  the  Dairymaid  is  best  of  all. 


George  Herbert. 

This  is  a name  which  will  be  more  familiar  to  the 
reader,  and  if  he  has  never  encountered  the  little 
olive-green,  gilt-edged  budget  of  Herbert’s  ^ poems, 
he  can  hardly  have  failed  to  have  met,  on  some 
page  of  the  anthologies,  such  excerpt  as  this  about 
Virtue : 

“ Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright, 

The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky. 

The  dew  shall  weep  thy  fall  to-night ; 

For  thou  must  die. 


* George  Herbert,  b.  1593  ; d.  1633.  The  edition  of  his 
poems  referred  to  is  that  of  Bell  & Daldy,  London,  1861. 
Walton’s  Life  of  him  is  delightful;  but  one  who  desires  the 
whole  story  should  not  fail  of  reading  Dr.  Grosart’s  essay, 
prefatory  to  the  works  of  George  Herbert,  in  the  Fuller 
WorthieB'  Library^  London,  1874, 


Ii6  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

“ Sweet  rose,  whose  hue,  angry  and  brave. 

Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye, 

Thy  root  is  ever  in  its  grave, 

And  thou  must  die. 

“ Only  a sweet  and  virtuous  soul, 

Like  season’d  timber,  never  gives  ; 

But  though  the  whole  world  turn  to  coal, 

Then  chiefly  lives.” 

And  now,  that  I have  quoted  this,  I wish  that  I 
had  quoted  another ; and  so  it  would  be,  I suppose, 
were  I to  go  through  the  little  book.  One  cannot 
go  amiss  of  lines  that  will  show  his  tenderness,  his 
strong  religious  feeling,  his  gloomy  coloring,  his 
quaint  conceits — with  not  overmuch  rhythmic  grace, 
but  a certain  spiritual  unction  that  commends  him 
to  hosts  of  devout-minded  people  everywhere.  Yet 
I cannot  help  thinking  that  he  would  have  been  lost 
sight  of  earlier  in  the  swarm  of  seventeenth-century 
poets,  had  it  not  been  for  a certain  romantic  glow 
attaching  to  his  short  life.  And  first,  he  was  a scion 
from  the  old  Pembroke  stock,  born  in  a great  cas- 
tle on  the  Welsh  borders,  and  bred  in  luxury.  He 
went  to  Cambridge  for  study  at  a time  when  he 
may  have  encountered  there  the  grim  boy-student. 


GEORGE  HERBERT, 


117 

Oliver  Cromwell,  or  possibly  that  other  fair-faced 
Cambridge  student,  John  Milton,  who  was  upon  the 
rolls  eight  years  later.  He  was  a young  fellow  of 
rare  scholarship,  winning  many  honors ; was  tall, 
spare,  with  an  eagle  eye  ; and  so  he  wins  upon  old 
James  I,  when  he  comes  down  on  a visit  to  the 
University  (the  Mother  Herbert  managing  to  have 
the  King  see  his  best  points,  even  to  his  silken 
doublets  and  his  jewelled  buckles,  of  which  the  lad 
was  fond).  And  he  is  taken  into  favor,  bandies 
compliments  with  the  monarch,  goes  again  and  again 
to  London  and  to  court ; sees  Chancellor  Bacon 
familiarly  — corrects  proofs  for  him  — and  has  hopes 
of  high  preferment.  But  his  chief  patron  dies ; the 
King  dies ; and  that  bubble  of  royal  inflation  is  at 
an  end. 

It  was  after  long  mental  struggle,  it  would  seem, 
that  George  Herbert,  whom  we  know  as  the  saintly 
poet,  let  the  hopes  of  court  consequence  die  out  of 
his  heart.  But  once  wedded  to  the  Church  his  re- 
ligious activities  and  sanctities  knew  no  hesitations. 
His  marriage  even  was  an  incident  that  had  no 
worldly  or  amorous  delays.  A Mr.  Danvers,  kins- 
man of  Herbert’s  step-father,  thought  all  the  world 


ii8  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

of  the  poet,  and  declared  his  utter  willingness  that 
Herbert  ‘‘  should  marry  any  one  of  his  nine  daugh- 
ters [for  he  had  so  many],  but  rather  Jane,  because 
Jane  was  his  beloved  daughter.”  And  to  such  good 
effect  did  the  father  talk  to  Jane,  that  she,  as  old 
Walton  significantly  tells  us,  was  in  love  with  the 
poet  before  yet  she  had  seen  him.  Only  four  days 
after  their  first  meeting  these  twain  were  married  ; 
nor  did  this  sudden  union  bring  such  disastrous 
result  as  so  swift  an  engineering  of  similar  con- 
tracts is  apt  to  show. 

At  Bemerton  vicarage,  almost  under  the  shadow 
of  Salisbury  cathedral,  he  began,  shortly  thereafter, 
that  saintly  and  poetic  life  which  his  verse  illustrates 
and  which  every  memory  of  him  ennobles.  His 
charities  were  beautiful  and  constant ; his  love  of 
the  fiesh,  his  early  “ choler,”  and  all  courtly  leanings 
crucified.  Even  the  peasants  thereabout  stayed  the 
plough  and  listened  reverently  (another  Angelus !) 
when  the  sounds  of  his  “ Praise-bells  ” broke  upon 
the  air.  It  is  a delightful  picture  the  old  Angler 
biographer  gives  of  him  there  in  his  quiet  vicarage 
of  Bemerton,  or  footing  it  away  over  Salisbury 
Plain,  to  lift  up  his  orison  in  symphony  with  the 


GEORGE  HERBERT. 


119 

organ  notes  that  pealed  from  underneath  the  arches 
of  Salisbury’s  wondrous  cathedral. 

Yet  over  all  the  music  and  the  poems  of  this 
Church  poet,  and  over  his  life,  a tender  gloom  lay 
constantly  ; the  grave  and  death  were  always  in  his 
eye  — always  in  his  best  verses.  And  after  some 
half-dozen  years  of  poetic  battling  with  the  great 
problems  of  life  and  of  death,  and  a further  battling 
with  the  chills  and  fogs  of  Wiltshire,  that  smote  him 
sorely,  he  died. 

He  was  buried  at  Bemerton,  where  a new  church 
has  been  built  in  his  honor.  It  may  be  found  on 
the  high-road  leading  west  from  Salisbury,  and  only 
a mile  and  a half  away  ; and  at  Wilton  — the  carpet 
town  — which  is  only  a fifteen  minutes’  walk  be- 
yond, may  be  found  that  gorgeous  church,  built  not 
long  ago  by  another  son  of  the  Pembroke  stock  (the 
late  Lord  Herbert  of  Lea),  who  perhaps  may  have 
had  in  mind  the  churchly  honors  due  to  his  poetic 
kinsman  ; and  yet  all  the  marbles  which  are  lavished 
upon  this  Wilton  shrine  are  poorer,  and  will  sooner 
fade  than  the  mosaic  of  verse  builded  into  The  Tern* 
pie  of  George  Herbert. 


120 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Robert  Herrick. 

I deal  with  a clergyman  again ; but  there  are 
clergymen  — and  clergymen. 

Kobert  Herrick  * was  the  son  of  a London  gold- 
smith, born  on  Cheapside,  not  far  away  from  that 
Mermaid  Tavern  of  which  mention  has  been  made  ; 
and  it  is  very  likely  that  the  young  Robert,  as  a 
boy,  may  have  stood  before  the  Tavern  windows 
on  tiptoe,  listening  to  the  drinking  songs  that 
came  pealing  forth  when  Ben  Jonson  and  the  rest 
were  in  their  first  lusty  manhood.  He  studied  at 
Cambridge,  receiving,  may  be,  some  scant  help  from 
his  rich  uncle.  Sir  William  Herrick,  who  had  won 
his  title  by  giving  good  jewel  bargains  to  King 
James.  He  would  seem  to  have  made  a long  stay 
in  Cambridge  ; and  only  in  1620,  when  our  Pil- 
grims were  beating  toward  Plymouth  shores,  do 
we  hear  of  him  domiciled  in  London  — learning  the 
town,  favored  by  Ben  Jonson  and  his  fellows,  per- 

^ Robert  Herrick  b.  (or  at  least  baptized)  1591  ; d.  1674. 
The  fullest  edition  of  his  works  is  that  edited  by  Dr.  Gro- 
sart,  and  published  by  Chatto  h Windus,  London,  1876. 


ROBERT  HERRICK. 


121 


haps  apprenticed  to  the  goldsmith  craft,  certainly 
putting  jewels  into  fine  settings  of  verse  even  then  ; 
some  of  them  with  coarse  flaws  in  them,  but  full  of 
a glitter  and  sparkle  that  have  not  left  them  yet. 
Nine  years  later,  after  such  town  experiences  as  we 
cannot  trace,  he  gets,  somehow,  appointment  to  a 
church  living  down  in  Devonshire  at  Dean  Prior. 
His  parish  was  on  the  southeastern  edge  of  that 
great  heathery  stretch  of  wilderness  called  Dart- 
moor Forest : out  of  this,  and  from  under  cool 
shadows  of  the  Tors,  ran  brooks  which  in  the 
cleared  valleys  were  caught  by  rude  weirs  and 
shot  out  in  irrigating  skeins  of  water  upon  the 
grassland.  Yet  it  was  far  away  from  any  echo  of 
the  Mermaid  ; old  traditions  were  cherished  there  ; 
old  ways  were  reckoned  good  ways ; and  the  ploughs 
of  that  region  are  still  the  clumsiest  to  be  found  in 
England.  There  Robert  Herrick  lived,  preaching 
and  writing  poems,  through  those  eighteen  troub- 
lous years  which  went  before  the  execution  of 
Charles  I.  What  the  goldsmith-vicar’s  sermons 
were  we  can  only  conjecture:  w^hat  the  poems 
were  he  writ,  we  can  easily  guess  from  the  flowers 
that  enjewel  them,  or  the  rarer  “ noble  numbers  ” 


122 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


which  take  hold  on  religious  sanctities.  This 
preacher-poet  twists  the  lilies  and  roses  into  bright 
little  garlands,  that  blush  and  droop  in  his  pretty 
couplets,  as  they  did  in  the  vicar’s  garden  of  Dev- 
on. The  daffodils  and  the  violets  give  out  their 
odors  to  him,  if  he  only  writes  their  names. 

Hear  what  he  says  to  Phyllis,  and  how  the  num- 
bers flow : 

“ The  soft,  sweet  moss  shall  he  thy  bed, 

With  crawling  woodbine  overspread  : 

By  which  the  silver-shedding  streams 
Shall  gently  melt  thee  into  dreams. 

Thy  clothing  next,  shall  be  a gown 
Made  of  the  fleeces’  purest  down. 

The  tongues  of  kids  shall  be  thy  meat ; 

Their  milk  thy  drink  ; and  thou  shalt  eat 
The  paste  of  filberts  for  thy  bread, 

With  cream  of  cowslips  buttered  : 

Thy  feasting  table  shall  be  hills 
With  daisies  spread  and  daffodils  ; 

Where  thou  shalt  sit,  and  Ked-breast  by, 

For  meat,  shall  give  thee  melody.” 

Then  again,  see  how  in  his  soberer  and  medi- 
tative moods,  he  can  turn  the  rich  and  resonant 
Litany  of  the  Anglican  Church  into  measures  of 
sweet  sound : 


ROBERT  HERRICK. 


123 


In  the  hour  of  my  distress, 

When  temptations  me  oppress, 

And  when  I my  sins  confess, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me ! 

“When  I lie  within  my  bed, 

Sick  in  heart,  and  sick  in  head, 

And  with  doubts  discomforted. 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  I 

“ When  the  house  doth  sigh  and  weep, 

And  the  world  is  drown’d  in  sleep. 

Yet  mine  eyes  the  watch  do  keep. 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  I 

**  When  the  passing  bell  doth  toll. 

And  the  furies  in  a shoal 
Come,  to  fright  a parting  soul, 

^ Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me ! 

“When  the  judgment  is  reveal’d. 

And  that  opened  which  was  seal’d ; 

When  to  thee  I have  appeal’d, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  I ” 

Now,  in  reading  these  two  poems  of  such  oppo- 
site tone,  and  yet  of  agreeing  verbal  harmonies, 
one  would  say — here  is  a singer,  serene,  devout,  of 
delicate  mould,  loving  all  beautiful  things  in  heaven 
and  on  earth.  One  would  look  for  a man  saintly  of 
aspect,  deep-eyed,  tranquil,  too  ethereal  for  earth. 

Well,  I must  tell  the  truth  in  these  talks,  so  far 


324 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


as  I can  find  it,  no  matter  what  cherished  images 
may  break  down.  This  Eobert  Herrick  was  a pon- 
derous, earthy-looking  man,  with  huge  double  chin, 
drooping  cheeks,  a great  Koman  nose,  prominent 
glassy  eyes,  that  showed  around  them  the  red  lines 
begotten  of  strong  potions  of  Canary,  and  the  whole 
set  upon  a massive  neck  which  might  have  been 
that  of  Heliogabalus.*  It  was  such  a figure  as  the 
artists  would  make  typical  of  a man  who  loves  the 
grossest  pleasures. 

The  poet  kept  a pet  goose  at  the  vicarage,  and 
also  a pet  pig,  which  he  taught  to  drink  beer  out 
of  his  own  tankard  ; and  an  old  parishioner,  for 
whose  story  Anthony  a Wood  is  sponsor,  tells  us 
that  on  one  occasion  when  his  little  Devon  congre- 
gation would  not  listen  to  him  as  he  thought  they 
ought  to  listen,  he  dashed  his  sermon  on  the  fioor, 
and  marched  with  tremendous  stride  out  of  church 
— home  to  fondle  his  pet  pig. 

When  Charles  L came  to  grief,  and  when  the 

* Dr.  Grosart  objects  that  most  portraits  are  too  gross  : I 
am  content  if  comparison  be  made  only  with  the  engraving 
authorized  by  Dr.  Grosart,  and  authenticated  by  his  careful 
investigation  and  a warm  admiration  for  his  subject. 


ROBERT  HERRICK. 


125 

Puritans  began  to  sift  the  churches,  this  Royal- 
ist poet  proved  a clinker  that  was  caught  in  the 
meshes  and  thrown  aside.  This  is  not  surprising. 
It  was  after  his  enforced  return  to  London,  and 
in  the  year  1648  (one  year  before  Charles’  execution 
at  Whitehall),  that  the  first  authoritative  publica- 
tion was  made  of  the  Hesperides,  or  WorkSy  both 
Humane  and  Divine y of  Robert  Herrick , Esq.  — his 
clerical  title  dropped. 

There  were  those  critics  and  admirers  who  saw  in 
Herrick  an  allegiance  to  the  methods  of  Catullus ; 
others  who  smacked  in  his  epigrams  the  verbal  feli- 
cities of  Martial ; but  surely  there  is  no  need,  in  that 
fresh  spontaneity  of  the  Devon  poet,  to  hunt  for 
classic  parallels ; nature  made  him  one  of  her  own 
singers,  and  by  instincts  born  with  him  he  fash- 
ioned words  and  fancies  into  jewelled  shapes.  The 
‘‘more’s  the  pity” for  those  gross  indelicacies  which 
smirch  so  many  pages ; things  unreadable ; things 
which  should  have  been  unthinkable  and  unwritable 
by  a clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England.  To  what 
period  of  his  life  belonged  his  looser  verses  it  is 
hard  to  say ; perhaps  to  those  early  days  when, 
fresh  from  Cambridge,  Ben  Jonson  patted  him  on 


126 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


the  shoulder  approvingly  ; perhaps  to  those  later 
years  when,  soured  by  his  ejection  from  the  Church, 
he  dropped  his  Eeverend,  and  may  have  capped 
verses  with  such  as  Davenant  or  Lovelace,  and 
others,  whose  antagonism  of  Puritanism  provoked 
wantonness  of  speech. 

At  the  restoration  of  Charles  11.,  Herrick  was  re- 
instated in  his  old  parish  in  Devonshire,  and  died 
there,  among  the  meadows  and  the  daffodils,  at  the 
ripe  age  of  eighty-four.  And  as  we  part  with  this 
charming  singer,  we  cannot  forbear  giving  place  to 
this  bit  of  his  penitential  verse  : 

“ For  these  my  unbaptized  rhymes 
Writ  in  my  wild  unhallowed  times, 

For  every  sentence,  clause,  and  word 
That’s  not  inlaid  with  thee,  O Lord  ; 

Forgive  me,  God,  and  blot  each  line 
Out  of  my  book,  that  is  not  thine  I ” 

Revolutionary  Times. 

I have  given  the  reader  a great  many  names  to 
remember  to-day ; they  are  many,  because  we  have 
found  no  engrossing  one  whose  life  and  genius 
have  held  us  to  a long  story.  But  we  should  never 


NEW  POETIC  FORMS. 


127 


enjoy  the  great  memories  except  they  were  set  in 
the  foil  of  lesser  ones,  to  emphasize  their  glories. 

The  writers  of  this  particular  period  — some  of 
whom  I have  named  — fairly  typify  and  illustrate 
the  drift  of  letters  away  from  the  outspoken  ar- 
dors and  full-toned  high  exuberance  of  Elizabethan 
days,  to  something  more  coy,  more  schooled, 
more  reticent,  more  measured,  more  tame.*  The 
cunning  of  word  arrangement  comes  into  the 
place  of  spontaneous,  maybe  vulgar  wit  ; humor 
is  saddled  with  school-craftiness  ; melodious  echoes 
take  the  place  of  fresh  bursts  of  sound.  Po- 
etry, that  gurgled  out  by  its  own  wilful  laws  of 
progression,  now  runs  more  in  channels  that  old 
laws  have  marked.  Words  and  language  that  had 
been  used  to  tell  straightforwardly  stories  of  love 
and  passion  and  suffering  are  now  put  to  uses  of 
pomp  and  decoration. 

Moreover,  in  Elizabethan  times,  when  a great 
monarch  and  great  ministers  held  the  reins  of 
power  undisturbed  and  with  a knightly  hand,  min- 


* Herrick  is  not  an  example  of  this  ; hut  Herbert  is  ; so  is 
Overbury  with  his  “ Wife  so  is  Vaughan  ; so  is  Browne. 


128 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


strelsy,  wherever  it  might  lift  its  voice,  had  the 
backing  and  the  fostering  support  of  great  tranquil- 
lity and  gi'eat  national  pride.  In  the  days  when  the 
Armada  was  crushed,  when  British  ships  and  Brit- 
ish navigators  brought  every  year  tales  of  gold, 
tales  of  marvellous  new  shores,  when  princes  of  the 
proudest  courts  came  flocking  to  pay  suit  to  Eng- 
land’s great  Virgin  Queen,  what  poet  should  not 
sing  at  his  loudest  and  his  bravest?  But  in  the 
times  into  which  we  have  now  drifted,  there  is  no 
tranquillity ; the  fever  of  Puritans  against  Angli- 
cans, of  Independents  against  Monarchy  Men,  is 
raging  through  all  the  land ; pride  in  the  kingship 
of  such  as  James  I.  had  broken  down  ; pride  in  the 
kingship  of  the  decorous  Charles  1.  has  broken 
down  again.  All  intellectual  ardors  run  into  the 
channels  of  the  new  strifes.  Only  through  little 
rifts  in  the  stormy  sky  do  the  sunny  gleams  of 
poesy  break  in. 

There  are  colonies,  too,  planted  over  seas,  and 
growing  apace  in  these  days,  whither  the  eyes  and 
thoughts  of  many  of  the  bravest  and  clearest  think- 
ers are  turning.  Even  George  Herbert,  warmest  of 
Anglicans,  and  of  the  noble  house  of  Pembroke,  was 


OVER  Seas, 


129 


used  to  say,  ‘‘  Eeligion  * is  going  over  seas.”  They 
were  earnest,  hard  workers,  to  be  sure,  who  went  — 
keen-thoughted  — far-seeing  — most  diligent — not 
up  to  poems  indeed,  save  some  little  occasional 
burst  of  melodious  thanksgiving.  But  they  carried 
memories  of  the  best  and  of  the  strongest  that  be- 
longed to  the  intellectual  life  of  England.  The 
ponderous  periods  of  Eichard  Hooker,  and  the 
harshly  worded  wise  things  of  John  Selden,f  found 
lodgement  in  souls  that  were  battling  with  the 
snows  and  pine-woods  where  Andover  and  Salem 
and  Newburyport  were  being  planted.  And  over 
there,  maybe,  first  of  all,  would  hope  kindle  and 
faith  brighten  at  sound  of  that  fair  young  Puritan 


* “ Religion  stands  on  tiptoe  in  onr  land 
Ready  to  pass  to  the  American  strand. 

My  God,  Thou  dost  prepare  for  them  a way, 

By  carrying  first  their  gold  from  them  away  ; 

For  gold  and  grace  did  never  yet  agree  ; 

Religion  always  sides  with  Poverty.  ” 

— Herbert’s  Tlie  Church  Militant. 

fJohn  Selden,  b.  1584;  d.  1654.  His  Table-Talk,  by 
which  he  is  best  known,  was  published  in  1689.  Coleridge 
said,  “ It  contains  more  weighty  bullion  sense  than  I have 
ever  found  in  the  same  number  of  pages  of  any  uninspired 
writer.” 


II.— 9 


130  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

poet,  who  has  just  now,  in  Cambridge,  sung  his 
‘‘  Hymn  of  the  Nativity.”  ^ 

But  the  storm  and  the  wreck  were  coming. 
There  were  forewarnings  of  it  in  the  air  ; fore- 
warnings of  it  in  the  court  and  in  Parliament ; fore- 
warnings of  it  in  every  household.  City  was  to  be 
pitted  against  city ; brother  against  brother ; and 
in  that  “ sea  of  trouble,”  down  went  the  King  and 
the  leaders  of  old,  and  up  rose  the  Commonwealth 
and  the  leaders  of  the  new  faith. 

In  our  next  talk  we  shall  find  all  England  rocking 
on  that  red  wave  of  war.  You  would  think  poets 
should  be  silent,  and  the  eloquent  dumb;  but  we 
shall  hear,  lifting  above  the  uproar,  the  golden  lan- 
guage of  Jeremy  Taylor  — the  measured  cadences 
of  Waller — the  mellifluous  jingle  of  Suckling  and 
of  his  Eoyalist  brothers,  and  drowning  all  these 
with  its  grand  sweep  of  sound,  the  majestic  organ- 
music  of  Milton. 


* Jolin  Milton  : written  1629. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

I DID  not  hold  the  reader’s  attention  long  to 
the  nightmare  tragedies  of  Webster  and  Ford, 
though  they  show  shining  passages  of  amazing 
dramatic  power.  Marston  was  touched  upon,  and 
that  satiric  vein  of  his,  better  known  perhaps  than 
his  more  ambitious  work.  We  spoke  of  Massinger, 
whose  money-monster,  Giles  Overreach,  makes  one 
think  of  the  railway  wreckers  of  our  time ; then 
came  the  gracious  and  popular  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  twins  in  work  and  in  friendship ; the  for- 
mer dying  in  the  same  year  with  Shakespeare,  and 
Fletcher  dying  the  same  year  with  King  James 
(1625).  I spoke  of  that  Prince  Harry  who  promised 
well,  but  died  young,  and  of  Charles,  whose  sad 
story  will  come  to  ampler  mention  in  our  present 
talk.  We  made  record  of  the  death  of  Ben  Jonson 
— of  the  hack- writing  service  of  James  Howell — of 


132 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


the  dilettante  qualities  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  and  of 
the  ever-delightful  work  and  enduring  fame  of  the 
old  angler,  Izaak  Walton.  And  last  we  closed  our 
talk  with  sketches  of  two  poets  : the  one,  George 
Herbert,  to  whom  his  priestly  work  and  his  saintly 
verse  were  all  in  all and  the  other,  Kobert  Her- 
rick, born  to  a goldsmith’s  craft,  but  making  verses 
that  glittered  more  than  all  the  jewels  of  Cheapside. 

King  Charles  and  his  Friends, 

We  open  this  morning  upon  times  when  New- 
England  towns  were  being  planted  among  the 
pine-woods,  and  the  decorous,  courtly,  unfortunate 
Charles  I.  had  newly  come  to  the  throne.  Had  the 
King  been  only  plain  Charles  Stuart,  he  would 
doubtless  have  gone  through  life  with  the  reputa- 
tion of  an  amiable,  courteous  gentleman,  not  over- 
sturdy  in  his  friendships  — a fond  father  and 
good  husband,  with  a pretty  taste  in  art  and  in 
books,  but  strongly  marked  with  some  obstinacies 
about  the  w^'ays  of  wearing  his  rapier,  or  of  tying 
his  cravat,  or  of  overdrawing  his  bank  account. 


Specially  instanced  in  liis  final  desertion  of  Strafford. 


DUKE  OF  BUCKINGHAM, 


133 


In  the  station  that  really  fell  to  him  those  obsti- 
nacies took  hold  upon  matters  which  brought  him 
to  grief.  The  man  who  stood  next  to  Charles,  and 
who  virtually  governed  him,  was  that  George  Villiers, 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  by  his  fine  doublets,  fine 
dancing,  and  fine  presence,  had  very  early  com- 
mended himself  to  the  old  King  James,  and  now 
lorded  it  with  the  son.  He  was  that  Steenie  who 
in  Scott’s  Fortunes  of  Nigel  plays  the  braggadocio  of 
the  court : he  had  attended  Prince  Charles  upon  that 
Quixotic  errand  of  his,  incognito,  across  Europe, 
to  play  the  wooer  at  the  feet  of  the  Infanta  of  Spain  ; 
and  when  nothing  came  of  all  that  show  of  gallantry 
and  the  lavishment  of  jewels  upon  the  dusky  heiress 
of  Castile,  the  same  Buckingham  had  negotiated  the 
marriage  with  the  French  princess,  Henrietta.  He 
was  a brazen  courtier,  a shrewd  man  of  the  world  ; 
full  of  all  accomplishments ; full  of  all  profligacy. 
He  made  and  unmade  bishops  and  judges,  and  bol- 
stered the  King  in  that  antagonism  to  the  Commons 
of  England  which  was  rousing  the  dangerous  in- 
dignation of  such  men  as  Eliot  and  Hampden  and 
Pym.  Private  assassination,  however,  took  him  off 
before  the  coming  of  the  great  day  of  wrath.  You 


134 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


must  not  confound  this  Duke  of  Buckingham  with 
another  George  Villiers,  also  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
who  was  his  son,  and  who  figured  largely  in  the 
days  of  Charles  IE.  — being  even  more  witty,  and 
more  graceful,  and  more  profligate  — if  possible  — 
than  his  father  ; a literary  man  withal,  and  the  au- 
thor of  a play  * which  had  great  vogue. 

Another  striking  figure  about  the  court  of 
Charles  was  a small,  red-faced  man,  keen-eyed, 
sanctimonious,  who  had  risen  from  the  humble 
ranks  (his  father  having  been  a clothier  in  a small 
town  of  Berkshire)  to  the  position  of  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  So  starched  was  he  in  his  High- 
Church  views  that  the  Pope  had  offered  him  the  hat 
of  a cardinal.  He  made  the  times  hard  for  Non- 
conformists ; your  ancestors  and  mine,  if  they  emi- 
grated in  those  days,  may  very  likely  have  been 
pushed  over  seas  by  the  edicts  of  Archbishop  Laud. 
His  monstrous  intolerance  was  provoking,  and  in- 
tensifying that  agitation  in  the  religious  world  of 
England  which  Buckingham  had  already  provoked 


* “ The  Behearsal.”  Complete  edition  of  his  works  pub- 
lished in  1775.  George  Villiers,  b.  1627 ; d.  1688. 


JEREMY  TAYLOR,  135 

in  the  political  world ; and  the  days  of  wrath  were 
coming. 

This  Archbishop  Laud  is  not  only  keen-sighted 
but  he  is  bountiful  and  helpful  within  the  lines  of 
his  own  policy.  He  endowed  Oxford  with  great, 
fine  buildings.  Some  friend  has  told  him  that  a 
young  preacher  of  wonderful  attractions  has  made 
his  appearance  at  Sfc.  Paul’s  — down  on  a visit  from 
Cambridge  — a young  fellow,  wonderfully  hand- 
some, with  curling  locks  and  great  eyes  full  of  ex- 
pression, and  a marvellous  gift  of  language  ; and  the 
Archbishop  takes  occasion  to  see  him  or  hear  him  ; 
and  finding  that  beneath  such  exterior  there  is 
real  vigor  and  learning,  he  makes  place  for  him  as 
Fellow  at  Oxford ; appoints  him  presently  his  own 
chaplain,  and  gives  him  a living  down  in  Rutland. 

Jeremy  Taylor. 

This  priest,  of  such  eloquence  and  beauty,  was 
Jeremy  Taylor,*  who  was  the  son  of  a barber  at 
Cambridge,  was  entered  at  Caius  College  as  sizar, 

* Jeremy  Taylor,  b.  1613  ; d.  1667.  First  collected  edition 
of  his  works  issued  in  1823  (Bishop  Heber) ; reissued,  with 
revision  (0.  P.  Eden),  1852-61. 


136  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


or  charity  scholar,  just  one  year  after  Milton  was 
entered  at  Christ  College,  and  from  the  door  of  his 
father’s  shop  may  have  looked  admiringly  many  a 
time  upon  the 

‘ ‘ rosy  cheeks 

Angelical,  keen  eye,  courageous  look, 

And  conscious  step  of  purity  and  pride,” 

which  belonged  even  then  to  the  young  Puritan 
poet.  But  Jeremy  Taylor  was  not  a Puritan ; never 
came  to  know  Milton  personally.  One  became  the 
great  advocate  and  the  purest  illustration  of  the 
tenets  of  Episcopacy  in  England ; and  the  other  — 
eventually  — their  most  effective  and  weighty  oppo- 
nent. In  1640,  only  one  year  after  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  established  in  his  pleasant  Eutland  rectory, 
Archbishop  Laud  went  to  the  Tower,  not  to  come 
forth  till  he  should  go  to  the  scaffold  ; and  in  the 
Civil  War,  breaking  out  presently,  Jeremy  Taylor 
joined  the  Eoyalists,  was  made  chaplain  to  the  King, 
saw  battle  and  siege  and  wounds ; but  in  the  top  of 
the  strife  he  is  known  by  his  silvery  voice  and  his 
exuberant  piety,  and  by  the  rare  eloquence  which 
colors  prayer  and  sermon  with  the  bloody  tinge  of 
war  and  the  pure  light  of  heaven.  He  is  wounded 


JEREMY  TAYLOR.  137 

(as  I said),  lie  is  imprisoned,  and  finally,  by  the 
chances  of  battle,  he  is  stranded  in  a small  country 
town  near  to  Caermarthen,  in  South  Wales. 

“ In  the  great  storm,”  he  says,  which  dashed  the  vessel 
of  the  Church  all  in  pieces,  I was  cast  on  the  coast  of 
Wales,  and  in  a little  boat  thought  to  have  enjoyed  that  rest 
and  quietness  which  in  England  I could  not  hope  for.” 

The  little  boat  he  speaks  of  was  the  obscure 
mountain  home  where  he  taught  school,  and  where 
he  received,  some  time,  visits  from  the  famous  John 
Evelyn,*  who  wrote  charming  books  in  these  days 
about  woods  and  gardens,  and  who  befriended  the 
poor  stranded  chaplain.  Here,  too,  he  wrote  that 
monument  of  toleration.  The  Liberty  of  Prophesy^ 
ing,  a work  which  would  be  counted  broad  in  its 
teachings  even  now,  and  which  alienated  a great 
many  of  his  more  starched  fellows  in  the  Church. 
A little  fragment  from  the  closing  pages  of  this 
book  will  show  at  once  his  method  of  illustration 
and  his  extreme  liberality  : 

“ When  Abraham  sat  at  his  tent  door,  waiting  to  entertain 
strangers,  he  espied  an  old  man  stopping  by  the  way,  lean- 

* John  Evelyn,  b.  1620  ; d.  1706.  His  best  known  books 
are  his  Diary ^ and  Bylm — a treatise  on  arboriculture. 


138  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


ing  on  his  staff,  weary  with  much  travel,  and  who  was  a 
hundred  years  of  age. 

He  received  him  kindly,  provided  supper,  caused  him 
to  sit  down;  but  observing  that  the  old  man  ate,  and  prayed 
not,  neither  begged  for  a blessing  on  his  meat,  he  asked 
him  why  he  did  not  worship  the  God  of  Heaven  ? 

“ The  old  man  told  him  he  had  been  used  to  worship  the 
sun  only. 

“Whereupon  Abraham  in  anger  thrust  him  from  his  tent. 
When  he  was  gone  into  the  evils  of  the  night,  God  called  to 
Abraham,  and  said,  ‘ I have  suffered  this  man,  whom  thou 
hast  cast  out,  these  hundred  years,  and  couldest  thou  not 
endure  him  one  night,  when  he  gave  thee  no  trouble  ? * 
Upon  this  Abraham  fetched  the  man  back  and  gave  him  en- 
tertainment: ‘Go  thou  and  do  likewise,*  said  the  preacher, 
‘and  thy  charity  will  be  rewarded  by  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham.’ ” * 

Jeremy  Taylor  did  not  learn  this  teaching  from 
Archbishop  Laud,  but  from  the  droiture  of  his  own 
conscience,  and  the  kindness  of  his  own  heart. 
He  wrote  much  other  and  most  delectable  matter 
in  his  years  of  Welsh  retirement,  when  a royal 
chaplain  was  a bugbear  in  England.  He  lost  sons, 


* I have  not  been  careful  to  give  the  ipsissima  mrha  of 
Taylor’s  version  of  this  old  Oriental  legend,  which  has 
been  often  cited,  but  never  more  happily  transplanted  into 
the  British  gardens  of  doctrine  than  by  Jeremy  Taylor. 


JEREMY  TAYLOR.  139 

too  — who  had  gone  to  the  bad  under  the  influ- 
ences of  that  young  Duke  of  Buckingham  I men« 
tioned  ; but  at  last,  when  the  restoration  of  Charles 
II.  came,  he  was  given  a bishopric  in  the  wilds  of 
Ireland,  in  a sour,  gloomy  country,  with  sour  and 
gloomy  looks  all  around  him,  which  together, 
broke  him  down  at  the  age  of  fifty-five.  I have 
spoken  thus  much  of  him,  because  he  is  a man  to 
be  remembered  as  the  most  eloquent,  and  the  most 
kindly,  and  the  most  tolerant  of  all  the  Church  of 
England  people  in  that  day ; and  because  his  trea- 
tises on  Holy  Limng  and  Holy  Dying  will  doubtless 
give  consolation  to  thousands  of  desponding  souls, 
in  the  years  to  come,  as  they  have  in  the  years 
that  are  past.  He  was  saturated  through  and 
through  with  learning  and  with  piety ; and  they 
gurgled  from  him  together  in  a great  tide  of  melli- 
fluous language.  The  ardors  and  fervors  of  Eliza- 
bethan days  seem  to  have  lapped  over  upon  him  in 
that  welter  of  the  Commonwealth  wars.  He  has 
been  called  the  Shakespeare  of  the  pulpit ; I should 
rather  say  the  Spenser  — there  is  such  unchecked, 
and  uncheckable,  affluence  of  language  and  illus- 
tration ; thought  and  speech  struggling  together 


140 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


for  precedence,  and  stretching  on  and  on,  in  ever 
so  sweet  and  harmonious  jangle  of  silvery  sounds. 

A Royalist  and  a Puritan. 

Another  Royalist  of  these  times,  of  a different 
temper,  was  Sir  John  Suckling  : * a poet  too,  very 
rich,  bred  in  luxury,  a man  of  the  world,  who  had 
seen  every  court  in  Europe  worth  seeing,  who 
dashed  off  songlets  and  ballads  between  dinners 
and  orgies  ; which  songlets  often  hobbled  on  their 
feet  by  reason  of  those  multiplied  days  of  high  liv- 
ing ; but  yet  they  had  prettinesses  in  them  which 
have  kept  them  steadily  alive  all  down  to  these 
prosaic  times.  I give  a sample  from  his  ‘‘Ballad 
upon  a Wedding,”  though  it  may  be  over- well 
known ; 

“Her  cheeks  so  rare  a white  was  on 
No  daisy  makes  comparison 

(Who  sees  them  is  undone)  : 

For  streaks  of  red  were  mingled  there 
Such  as  are  on  a Catharine  pear, 

The  side  that’s  next  the  sun. 


*John  Suckling,  b.  1609;  d.  1642.  An  edition  of  his 
poems,  edited  by  W.  C.  Hazlitt,  was  published  in  1874. 


SIR  JOHN  SUCKLING.  141 

Her  feet  beneath  her  petticoat 

Like  little  mice  stole  in  and  out 
As  if  they  feared  the  light. 

But  O,  she  dances  such  a way  ! 

No  sun  upon  an  Easter  day 
Is  half  so  fine  a sight ! ” 

He  was  a frequenter  of  a tavern  which  stood  at 
the  Southwark  end  of  London  Bridge.  Aubrey 
says  he  was  one  of  the  best  bowlers  of  his  time. 
He  played  at  cards,  too,  rarely  well,  and  did  use 
to  practise  by  himself  abed.”  He  was  rich ; he  was 
liberal;  he  was  accomplished  — almost  an  Admir- 
able Crichton.”  His  first  military  service  was  in 
support  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  in  Germany.  At 
the  time  of  trouble  with  the  Scots  (1639)  he  raised 
a troop  for  the  King’s  service  that  bristled  with 
gilded  spurs  and  trappings  ; but  he  never  did  much 
serious  fighting  on  British  soil ; and  in  1641  — 
owing  to  what  was  counted  treasonable  action  in 
behalf  of  Strafford,  he  was  compelled  to  leave  Eng- 
land. 

He  crossed  over  to  the  Continent,  wandered  into 
Spain,  and  somehow  became  (as  a current  tradition 
reported)  a victim  of  the  Inquisition  there,  and  was 
put  to  cruel  torture  ; a strange  subject  surely  to  be 


142 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


put  to  the  torture  — in  this  life.  He  was  said  to 
be  broken  by  this  experience,  and  strayed  away, 
after  his  escape  from  those  priest-fangs,  to  Paris, 
where,  not  yet  thirty-five,  and  with  such  promise  in 
him  of  better  things,  he  came  to  his  death  in  some 
mysterious  way : some  said  by  a knife-blade  which 
a renegade  servant  had  fastened  in  his  boot ; but 
most  probably  by  suicide.  There  is,  however,  great 
obscurity  in  regard  to  his  life  abroad. 

He  wrote  some  plays,  which  had  more  notice 
than  they  should  have  had  ; possibly  owing  to  a re- 
vival of  dramatic  interests  very  strangely  brought 
about  in  Charles  L’s  time  — a revival  which  was 
due  to  the  over-eagerness  and  exaggeration  of 
attacks  made  upon  it  by  the  Puritans  : noticeable 
among  these  was  that  of  William  Prynne  * — 
“utter  barrister”  of  Lincoln’s  Inn.  “Utter  bar- 
rister” does  not  mean  aesthetic  barrister,  but  one 
not  yet  come  to  full  range  of  privilege. 

This  Prynne  was  a man  of  dreadful  insistence 
and  severities ; he  would  have  made  a terrific 

* William  Prynne,  b.  1600 ; d.  1669.  He  was  a Somer- 
setshire man,  severely  Calvinistic,  and  before  he  was  thirty 
had  written  about  the  TlnLovdinesa  of  Love  Locks 


WILLIAM  PRYNNE. 


143 


Bchoolmaster.  He  was  the  author,  in  the  course  of 
his  life,  of  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  eighty 
distinct  works  ; many  of  them,  it  is  true,  were  pam- 
phlets, but  others  terribly  bulky  — an  inextin- 
guishable man  ; that  onslaught  on  the  drama  and 
dramatic  people,  and  play -goers,  including  peo- 
ple of  the  Court,  called  Histriomastix,  was  a foul- 
mouthed,  close-printed,  big  quarto  of  a thousand 
pages.  One  would  think  such  a book  could  do  lit- 
tle harm  ; but  he  was  tried  for  it,  was  heavily 
fined,  and  sentenced  to  stand  in  the  pillory  and 
lose  his  ears.  He  pleaded  strongly  against  the 
sentence,  and  for  its  remission  upon  ‘‘  divers  pas- 
sages [as  he  says  in  his  petition]  fallen  inconsider- 
ately from  my  pen  in  a book  called  HistriomastixP 

But  he  pleaded  in  vain  ; there  was  no  sympathy 
for  him.  Ought  there  to  be  for  a man  who  writes 
a book  of  a thousand  quarto  pages  — on  any  sub- 
ject? The  violence  of  this  diatribe  made  a reaction 
in  favor  of  the  theatre  ; his  fellow-barristers  of  Lin- 
coln’s Inn  hustled  him  out  of  their  companionship, 
and  got  up  straightway  a gay  masque  to  demon- 
strate their  scorn  of  his  reproof. 

They  say  he  bore  his  punishment  sturdily. 


144 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


though  the  fumes  of  his  book,  which  was  burned 
just  below  his  nose,  came  near  to  suffocate  him. 
Later  still,  he  underwent  another  sentence  for  of- 
fences growing  out  of  his  unrelenting  and  im- 
perious Puritanism  — this  time  in  company  with  one 
Burton  (not  Robert  Burton,^  of  the  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy),  who  was  a favorite  with  the  people  and 
had  flowers  strown  before  him  as  he  walked  to  the 
pillory.  But  Prynne  had  no  flowers,  and  his  ears 
having  been  once  cropt,  the  hangman  had  a rough 
time  (a  very  rough  time  for  Prynne)  in  getting  at 
his  task.  Thereafter  he  was  sent  to  prison  in  the 
isle  of  Jersey  ; but  he  kept  writing,  ears  or  no  ears, 
and  we  may  hear  his  strident  voice  again  — hear  it 
in  Parliament,  too. 

Cowley  and  Waller. 

Two  other  poets  of  these  times  I name,  because 
of  the  great  reputation  they  once  had ; a reputa- 

* Robert  Burton,  b.  1576  ; d.  1639,  was  too  remarkable  a 
man  to  get  his  only  mention  in  a note  *,  but  we  cannot 
always  govern  our  spaces.  His  best-known  work,  The  Anat- 
omy of  Melancholy,  is  an  excellent  book  to  steal  from  — 
whether  quotations  or  crusty  notions  of  the  author’s  own. 


ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 


145 


tion  far  greater  than  they  maintain  now.  These 
are  Abraham  Cowley  and  Edmund  Waller.^  The 
former  of  these  (Cowley)  was  the  son  of  a Lon- 
don grocer,  whose  shop  was  not  far  from  the  home 
of  Izaak  Walton ; he  was  taught  at  Westminster 
School,  and  at  Cambridge,  and  blazed  up  preco- 
ciously at  the  age  of  fifteen  in  shining  verses,  f In- 
deed his  aptitude,  his  ingenuities,  his  scholarship, 
kept  him  in  the  first  rank  of  men  of  letters  all 
through  his  day,  and  gave  him  burial  between 

* Abraham  Cowley,  b.  1618 ; d.  1667.  Edmund  Waller, 
b.  1605 ; d.  1687. 

f I give  a taste  of  these  young  verses,  first  published  in 
the  Poetical  Blossoms  of  1633  ; also  sampled  approvingly  by 
the  mature  Cowley  in  his  essay  On  Myself: 

“ This  only  grant  me,  that  my  means  may  lie 
Too  low  for  envy,  for  contempt  too  high. 

Some  honor  I would  have 
Not  from  great  deeds,  but  good  alone. 

The  unknown  are  better  than  ill  known  ; 

Rumour  can  ope  the  grave. 

“ Thus  would  I double  my  life’s  fading  space, 

For  he  that  runs  it  well,  twice  runs  his  race. 

And  in  this  true  delight. 

These  unbought  sports,  this  happy  state, 

I would  not  fear  nor  wish  my  fate. 

But  boldly  say  each  night 
To-morrow  let  my  sun  his  beams  display, 

Or  in  clouds  hide  them  ; — I have  liv’d  to-day  I ’’ 

II  -10 


146  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Spenser  and  Chaucer  in  Westminster  Abbey.  He 
would  take  a humbler  place  if  he  were  disentombed 
now ; yet,  in  Cromwell’s  time,  or  in  that  of  Charles 
n.,  the  average  reading  man  knew  Cowley  better 
than  he  knew  Milton,  and  admired  him  more.  I 
give  you  a fragment  of  what  is  counted  his  best ; 
it  is  from  his  “ Hymn  to  Light : ” 

“ When,  Goddess,  thou  iift’st  up  thy  waken’d  head 
Out  of  the  morning’s  purple  bed, 

Thy  quire  of  birds  about  thee  play, 

And  all  the  joyful  world  salutes  the  rising  day. 

“ All  the  world’s  bravery,  that  delights  our  eyes, 

Is  but  thy  sev’ral  liveries, 

Thou  the  rich  dye  on  them  bestowest, 

Thy  nimble  pencil  paints  this  landscape  as  thou  goest. 

“ A crimson  garment  in  the  Kose  thou  wear’st ; 

A crown  of  studded  gold  thou  bear’st, 

The  virgin  lilies  in  their  white. 

Are  clad  but  with  the  lawn  of  almost  naked  light  I ” 

li  I were  to  read  a fragment  from  Tennyson  in 
contrast  with  Cowley’s  treatment  of  a similar  theme 
I think  you  might  wonder  less  why  his  reputation 
has  suffered  gradual  eclipse.  Shall  we  try  ? Cow- 
ley wrote  a poem  in  memory  of  a dear  friend,  and 
I take  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  its  verses  : 


COWLEY  TENNYSON. 


147 


Ye  fields  of  Cambridge,  our  dear  Cambridge,  say, 
Have  ye  not  seen  us  walking  every  day  ? 

Was  there  a tree  about,  which  did  not  know 
The  love  betwixt  us  two  ? 

Henceforth,  ye  gentle  trees,  for  ever  fade, 

Or  your  sad  branches  thicker  join. 

And  into  darksome  shades  combine, 

Dark  as  the  grave  wherein  my  friend  is  laid.’^ 

Tennyson  wrote  of  his  dead  friend,  and  here  is  a 
verse  of  it : 

‘‘  The  path  by  which  we  twain  did  go, 

Which  led  by  tracts  that  pleased  us  well 
Thro’  four  sweet  years,  arose  and  fell 
From  fiower  to  fiower,  from  snow  to  snow ; 

But  where  the  path  we  walk’d  began 
To  slant  the  fifth  autumnal  slope. 

As  we  descended,  following  hope, 

There  sat  the  shadow  feared  of  man. 

Who  broke  our  fair  companionship, 

And  spread  his  mantle  dark  and  cold, 

And  wrapped  thee  formless  in  the  fold. 

And  dulled  the  murmur  on  thy  lip, 

And  bore  thee  where  I could  not  see 
Nor  follow  — though  I walk  in  haste  ; 

And  think  — that  somewhere  in  the  waste, 

The  shadow  sits,  and  waits  for  me  I ” 


148  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

Can  I be  wrong  in  thinking  that  under  the  solemn 
lights  of  these  stanzas  the  earlier  poet’s  verse  grows 
dim? 

Cowley  was  a good  Kingsman ; and  in  the  days 
of  the  Commonwealth  held  position  of  secretary  to 
the  exiled  Queen  Henrietta,  in  Paris ; he  did,  at 
one  time,  think  of  establishing  himself  in  one  of 
the  American  colonies;  returned,  however,  to  his 
old  London  haunts,  and,  wearying  of  the  city, 
sought  retirement  at  Chertsey,  on  the  Thames’ 
banks  (where  his  old  house  is  still  to  be  seen),  and 
where  he  wrote,  in  graceful  prose  and  cumbrous 
verse,  on  subjects  related  to  country  life — which  he 
loved  overmuch  — and  died  there  among  his  trees 
and  the  meadows. 

Waller  was  both  Kingsman  and  Eepublican  — 
steering  deftly  between  extremes,  so  as  to  keep 
himself  and  his  estates  free  from  harm.  This  will 
weaken  your  sympathy  for  him  at  once  — as  it 
should  do.  He  lived  in  a grand  way  — affected  the 
philosopher;  toas  such  a philosopher  as  quick- 
witted selfishness  makes ; yet  he  surely  had  won- 
derful aptitudes  in  dealing  with  language,  and 
could  make  its  harmonious  numbers  flow  where 


EDMUND  WALLER. 


149 


and  how  he  would.  Waller  has  come  to  a casual 
literary  importance  in  these  days  under  the  deft 
talking  and  writing  of  those  dilettante  critics  who 
would  make  this  author  the  pivot  (as  it  were)  on 
which  British  poesy  swung  away  from  the  ‘‘  hyster- 
ical riot  of  the  Jacobeans  ” into  measured  and 
orderly  classic  cadence.  It  is  a large  influence  to 
attribute  to  a single  writer,  though  his  grace  and 
felicities  go  far  to  justify  it.  And  it  is  further  to 
be  remembered  that  such  critics  are  largely  given 
to  the  discussion  of  technique  only ; they  write  as 
distinct  art-masters ; while  we,  who  are  taking  our 
paths  along  English  Letters  for  many  other  things 
besides  art  and  rhythm,  will,  I trust,  be  pardoned 
for  thinking  that  there  is  very  little  pith  or  weighty 
matter  in  this  great  master  of  the  juggleries  of 
sound. 

Waller  married  early  in  life,  but  lost  his  wife 
while  still  very  young  ; thenceforth,  for  many  years 
— a gay  and  coquettish  widower  — he  pursued  the 
Lady  Dorothy  Sidney  with  a storm  of  love  verses,  of 
which  the  best  (and  it  is  really  amazingly  clever  in 
its  neatness  and  point)  is  this : 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


150 


“ Go,  lovely  Rose, 

Tell  her,  that  wastes  her  time  and  me, 

That  now  she  knows 

When  I resemble  her  to  thee 

How  sweet  and  fair  she  seems  to  be. 

Tell  her  that’s  young. 

And  shuns  to  have  her  graces  spied. 

That  hadst  thou  sprung 
In  deserts  where  no  men  abide. 

Thou  must  have,  uncommended,  died.” 

But  neither  this,  nor  a htmdred  others,  brought 
the  Lady  Dorothy  to  terms:  she  married — like  a 
wise  woman  — somebody  else.  And  he  ? He  went 
on  singing  as  chirpingly  as  ever  — sang  till  he  was 
over  eighty. 


John  Milton. 

And  now  we  come  to  a poet  of  a larger  build  — a 
weightier  music  — and  of  a more  indomitable  spir- 
it ; a poet  who  wooed  the  world  with  his  songs ; 
and  the  world  has  never  said  him  ‘‘  Nay.”  I mean 
John  Milton,* 


* John  Milton,  b.  1608 ; d.  1674.  Editions  of  his  works 
are  numberless ; but  Dr.  Masson  is  the  fullest  and  best  ac* 
credited  contributor  to  Miltonian  literature. 


JOHN  MILTON.  15 1 

He  is  the  first  great  poet  we  have  encountered, 
in  respect  to  whom  we  can  find  in  contemporary 
records  full  details  of  family,  lodgement,  and  birth, 
A great  many  of  these  details  have  been  swooped 
together  in  Dr.  Masson's  recently  completed  Life 
and  Thnes  of  Milton^  which  I would  more  earnestly 
commend  to  your  reading  were  it  not  so  utterly 
long — six  fat  volumes  of  big  octavo  — in  the  which 
the  pith  and  kernel  about  Milton,  the  man,  fioats 
around  like  force  meat-balls  in  a great  sea  of  his- 
toric soup.  Our  poet  was  born  in  Bread  Street, 
just  out  of  Cheapside,  in  London,  in  the  year  1608. 

In  Cheapside — it  may  be  well  to  recall  — stood 
the  Mermaid  Tavern  ; and  it  stood  not  more  than 
half  a block  away  from  the  corner  where  Mil- 
ton’s father  lived.  And  on  that  corner  — who 
knows?  — the  boy,  eight  years  old,  or  thereby, 
when  Shakespeare  died,  may  have  lingered  to  see 
the  stalwart  Ben  Jonson  go  tavern -ward  for  his 
cups,  or  may  be,  John  Marston,  or  Dekker,  or 
Philip  Massinger  — all  these  being  comfortably  in- 
clined to  taverns. 

The  father  of  this  Bread  Street  lad  was  a scriv- 
ener by  profession ; that  is,  one  who  drafted  legal 


152 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  6-  ICINGS. 


papers ; a well-to-do  man  as  times  went ; able  to 
give  his  boy  some  private  schooling ; proud  of  him, 
too  ; proud  of  his  clear  white  and  red  face,  and  his 
curly  auburn  hair  carefully  parted  — almost  a girhs 
face  ; so  well-looking,  indeed,  that  the  father  em- 
ployed a good  Dutch  painter  of  those  days  to  take 
his  portrait ; the  portrait  is  still  in  existence  — dat- 
ing from  1618,  when  the  poet  was  ten,  showing  him 
in  a banded  velvet  doublet  and  a stiff  Vandyke  col- 
lar, trimmed  about  with  lace.  In  those  times,  or 
presently  after,  he  used  to  go  to  St.  Paul’s  Gram- 
mar School ; of  which  Lily,  of  Lily’s  Latin  Grammar, 
was  the  first  master  years  before.  It  was  only  a 
little  walk  for  him,  through  Cheapside,  and  then, 
perhaps.  Paternoster  Kow — the  school  being  under 
the  shadow  of  that  great  cathedral,  which  was 
burned  fifty  years  after.  He  studied  hard  there ; 
studied  at  home,  too  ; often,  he  says  himself,  when 
only  fourteen,  studying  till  twelve  at  night.  He 
loved  books,  and  he  loved  better  to  be  foremost. 

He  turns  his  hand  to  poetry  even  then.  Would 
you  like  to  see  a bit  of  what  he  wrote  at  fifteen  ? 
Well,  here  it  is,  in  a scrap  of  psalmody  : 


JOHN  MILTON. 


153 


“ Let  us  blaze  his  name  abroad, 

For  of  gods,  he  is  the  God, 

Who  by  his  wisdom  did  create 
The  painted  heavens  so  full  of  state, 

And  caused  the  golden  tressed  sun 
All  the  day  long  his  course  to  run, 

The  horned  moon  to  hang  by  night 
Amongst  her  spangled  sisters  bright ; 

For  his  mercies  aye  endure, 

Ever  faithful,  ever  sure.” 

It  is  not  of  the  best,  but  I think  will  compare 
favorably  with  most  that  is  written  by  young 
people  of  fifteen.  At  Christ’s  College,  Cambridge, 
whither  he  went  shortly  afterward  — his  father  be- 
ing hopeful  that  he  would  take  orders  in  the 
Church  — he  was  easily  among  the  first ; he  wrote 
Latin  hexameters,  quarrelled  with  his  tutor  (not- 
withstanding his  handsome  face  had  given  to  him 
the  mocking  title  of  “ The  Lady  ”),  had  his  season 
of  rustication  up  in  London,  sees  all  that  is  do- 
ing in  theatrics  thereabout,  but  goes  back  to  study 
more  closely  than  ever. 

The  little  Christmas  song, 

“ It  was  the  winter  wild, 

While  the  heaven -born  Child,”  etc., 


1 54 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


belongs  to  bis  Cambridge  life ; tbongb  his  first 
public  appearance  as  an  author  was  in  the  ‘‘  Ode  to 
Shakespeare,”  attaching  with  other  and  various 
commendatory  verses  to  the  second  folio  edition 
of  that  author’s  dramas,  published  in  the  year  1632. 

Milton  was  then  twenty-four,  had  been  six  or 
seven  at  Cambridge  ; did  not  accept  kindly  his 
father’s  notion  of  taking  orders  in  the  Church,  but 
had  exaggerated  views  of  a grandiose  life  of  study 
and  literary  work  ; in  which  views  his  father — sen- 
sible man  that  he  was  — did  not  share  ; but  — kind 
man  that  he  was — he  did  not  strongly  combat  them. 
So  we  find  father  and  son  living  together  presently, 
some  twenty  miles  away  from  London,  in  a little 
country  hamlet  called  Horton,  where  the  old  gen- 
tleman had  purchased  a cottage  for  a final  home 
when  his  London  business  was  closed  up. 

Here,  too,  our  young  poet  studies  — not  books 
only,  borrowed  where  he  can,  and  bought  if  he  can  ; 
but  studies  also  fields  and  trees  and  skies  and 
rivers,  and  all  the  natural  objects  that  are  to  take 
embalmment  sooner  or  later  in  his  finished  verse. 
Here  he  wrote,  almost  within  sight  of  Windsor 
towers,  ‘‘  L’ Allegro”  and  “II  Penaeroso.”  You  know 


JOHN  MILTON 


155 

them  ; but  they  are  always  new  and  always  fresh ; 
freshest  when  you  go  out  from  London  on  a sum- 
mer’s day  to  where  the  old  tower  of  Horton  Church 
still  points  the  road,  and  trace  there  (if  you  can) 

“ The  russet  lawns  and  fallows  gray 
Where  the  nibbling  flocks  do  stray, 

• ••••• 

Meadows  trim  with  daisies  pied, 

Shallow  brooks  and  rivers  wide. 

Sometimes  with  secure  delight 
The  upland  hamlets  will  invite, 

When  the  merry  bells  ring  round 
And  the  jocund  rebecks  sound 
To  many  a youth  and  many  a maid 
Dancing  in  the  chequered  shade  ; 

And  young  and  old  come  forth  to  play 
On  a sunshine  holiday.*’ 


In  reading  such  verse  we  do  not  know  where  to 
stop  — at  least,  I do  not.  He  writes,  too,  in  that 
country  quietude,  within  sight  of  Windsor  forest, 
his  charming  “ Lycidas,”  one  of  the  loveliest  of  me- 
morial poems,  and  the  ‘‘Comus,”  which  alone  of  all 
the  masques  of  that  time,  and  preceding  times,  has 
gone  in  its  entirety  into  the  body  of  living  English 
literature. 

In  1638,  then  thirty  years  old,  equipped  in  all 


156  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

needed  languages  and  scholarship,  he  goes  for  fur- 
ther study  and  observation  to  the  Continent ; he 
carries  letters  from  Sir  Henry  Wotton  ; he  sees  the 
great  Hugo  Grotius  at  Paris ; sees  the  sunny  coun- 
try of  olives  in  Provence  ; sees  the  superb  front  of 
Genoa  piling  out  from  the  blue  waters  of  the  Med- 
iterranean ; sees  Galileo  at  Florence — the  old  phi- 
losopher too  blind  to  study  the  face  of  the  studious 
young  Englishman  that  has  come  so  far  to  greet 
him.  He  sees,  too,  what  is  best  and  bravest  at 
Rome ; among  the  rest  St.  Peter’s,  just  then  brought 
to  completion,  and  in  the  first  freshness  of  its  great 
tufa  masonry.  He  is  feted  by  studious  young  Ital- 
ians ; has  the  freedom  of  the  Accademia  della 
Crusca ; blazes  out  in  love  sonnets  to  some  dark- 
eyed signorina  of  Bologna  ; returns  by  Venice,  and 
by  Geneva  where  he  hobnobs  with  the  Diodati 
friends  of  his  old  school-fellow,  Charles  Diodati ; 
and  comes  home  to  England  to  find  changes  brew- 
ing— the  Scotch  marching  over  the  border  with 
battle-drums  — the  Long  Parliament  portending  — 
Strafford  and  Laud  in  way  of  impeachment  — his 
old  father  drawing  near  to  his  end — and  bloody 
war  tainting  all  the  air. 


MILTON'S  MALT/AGE. 


157 


The  father's  fortune,  never  large,  is  found  crip- 
pled at  his  death  ; and  Milton,  now  thirty-two,  must 
look  out  for  his  own  earnings.  He  takes  a house  ; 
first  in  Fleet  Street,  then  near  Aldersgate,  with 
garden  attached,  where  he  has  three  or  four 
pupils ; his  nephew  Phillips  among  them. 

Milton’s  Marriage. 

It  was  while  living  there  that  he  brought  back, 
one  day,  a bride  — Mary  Powell ; she  was  a young 
maiden  in  her  teens,  daughter  of  a well-established 
loyalist  family  near  to  Oxford.  The  young  bride  is 
at  the  quiet  student’s  house  in  Aldersgate  a month, 
perhaps  two,  when  she  goes  down  for  a visit  to  her 
mother ; she  is  to  come  back  at  Michaelmas ; but 
Michaelmas  comes,  and  she  stays ; Milton  writes, 
and  she  stays ; Milton  writes  again,  and  she  stays  ; 
he  sends  a messenger  — and  she  stays. 

What  is  up,  then,  in  this  new  household?  Mil- 
ton,  the  scholar  and  poet,  is  up,  straightway,  to  a 
^ treatise  on  divorce,  whereby  he  would  make  it  easy 

* John  and  Edward  Phillips  both  with  him ; the  latter 
only  as  pupil. 


158  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

to  undo  yokes  where  parties  are  unevenly  yoked. 
There  is  much  scriptural  support  and  much  shrewd 
reasoning  brought  by  his  acuteness  to  the  over- 
throw of  those  rulings  which  the  common-sense  of 
mankind  has  established  ; even  now  those  who  con- 
tend for  easy  divorce  get  their  best  weapons  out  of 
this  old  Miltonian  armory. 

Meantime  the  poet  went  on  teaching,  I suspect 
rapping  his  boys  over  the  knuckles  in  these  days 
for  slight  cause.  But  what  does  it  all  mean  ? It 
means  incongruity ; not  the  first  case,  nor  will  it 
be  the  last.  He  — abstracted,  austere,  bookish,  with 
his  head  in  the  clouds  ; she  — with  her  head  in  rib- 
bons, and  possibly  loving  orderly  housewifery  : * 
intellectual  affinities  and  sympathies  are  certainly 
missing. 

Fancy  the  poet  just  launched  into  the  moulding 
of  such  verse  as  this  : 

“ Hail,  bounteous  May,  that  dost  inspire 
Mirth  and  youth,  and  warm  desire ! 

Woods  and  groves  are  of  thy  dressing ” 


* More  probably,  perhaps,  sulking  for  lack  of  her  old 
gayeties  of  life  in  the  range  of  Royal  Oxford.  Aubrey  s ac- 
counts would  favor  this  interpretation. 


MILTON'S  HOME, 


159 


when  a servant  gives  sharp  rat-tat  at  the  door, 
‘‘  Please,  sir,  missus  says,  ^ Dinner’s  waiting ! ’ ” 
But  the  poet  sweeps  on  — 

“ O nightingale,  that  on  yon  blooming  spray 
Warblest  at  eve,  when  all  the  woods  are  still, 

Thou,  with  fresh  heat,  the  lover’s  heart  dost  fill. 

Now  timely  sing,  ere  the  rude  bird  of  hate ” 

And  there  is  another  rat-tat ! — “ Please,  sir,  mis- 
sus says,  ‘ Dinner  is  all  getting  cold.’  ” Still  the  poet 
ranges  in  fairyland  — 

“ ere  the  rude  bird  of  hate 

Foretell  my  hopeless  doom,  in  some  grove  nigh. 

As  thou  from  year  to  year  hast  sung  too  late 
For  my  relief,  yet  hadst  no  reason  why ” 

And  now,  maybe,  it  is  the  pretty  mistress  who 
comes  with  a bounce  — Sir.  Milton,  are  you  ever 
coming? ” — and  a quick  bang  of  the  door,  which  is 
a way  some  excellent  petulant  young  women  have 
of  — not  breaking  the  commandments. 

There  is  a little  prosaic  half-line  in  the  ‘‘Paradise 
Lost”  (I  don’t  think  it  was  ever  quoted  before), 
which  in  this  connection  seems  to  me  to  have  a 
very  pathetic  twang  in  it ; ’tis  about  Paradise  and 
its  charms  — 


“ No  fear  lest  dinner  cool ! 


i6o  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

However,  it  happens  that  through  the  advocacy 
of  friends  on  both  sides  this  great  family  breach  is 
healed,  or  seems  to  be ; and  two  years  after,  Mil- 
ton  and  his  recreant,  penitent,  and  restored  wife 
are  living  again  together ; lived  together  till  her 
death ; and  she  became  the  mother  of  his  three 
daughters : Anne,  who  was  crippled,  never  even 
learned  to  write,  and  used  to  be  occupied  with 
her  needle ; Mary,  who  was  his  amanuensis  and 
reader  most  times,  and  Deborah,  the  youngest, 
who  came  to  perform  similar  offices  for  him  after- 
ward. 

Meantime  the  Eoyalist  cause  had  suffered  every- 
where. The  Powells  (his  wife’s  family  having  come 
to  disaster)  did  — with  more  or  less  children  — 
go  to  live  with  Milton.  Whether  the  presence  of 
the  mother-in-law  mended  the  poet’s  domesticity  I 
doubt;  doubt,  indeed,  if  ever  there  was  absolute 
harmony  there. 

On  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Naseby  appeared 
Milton’s  first  unpretending  booklet  of  poems,* 
containing  with  others,  those  already  named,  and 

* Poems  of  Mr.  John  Milton.,  both  English  and  Latin,  com- 
posed at  several  Times.  London,  1645. 


A ROYAL  TRAGEDY 


i6i 


not  before  printed.  Earlier,  however,  in  the  life- 
time of  the  poet  had  begun  the  issue  of  those 
thunderbolts  of  pamphlets  which  he  wrote  on 
church  discipline,  education,  on  the  liberty  of  un- 
licensed printing,  and  many  another  topic  — cum- 
brous'with  great  trails  of  intricate  sentences,  won- 
drous word-heaps,  sparkling  with  learning,  flaming 
with  anger  — with  convolutions  like  a serpent’s, 
and  as  biting  as  serpents. 

A show  is  kept  up  of  his  school-keeping,  but 
with  doubtful  success ; for  in  1647  we  learn  that 
‘‘he  left  his  great  house  in  Barbican,  and  betook 
himself  to  a smaller  in  High  Holborn,  among  those 
that  open  back  into  Lincoln’s  Inn  Fields  ; ” but 
there  is  no  poem-making  of  importance  (save  one 
or  two  wondrous  Sonnets)  now,  or  again,  until  he 
is  virtually  an  old  man. 


The  Royal  Tragedy. 

Meantime  the  tide  of  war  is  flowing  back  and 

forth  over  England  and  engrossing  all  hopes  and 

fears.  The  poor  King  is  one  while  a captive  of  the 

Scots,  and  again  a captive  of  the  Parliamentary 
IT.— 11 


i62  lands,  letters,  KINGS, 

forces,  and  is  hustled  from  palace  to  castle.  What 
shall  be  done  with  the  royal  prisoner  ? There  are 
thousands  who  have  fought  against  him  who  would 
have  been  most  glad  of  his  escape;  but  there  are 
others  — weary  of  his  doublings  — who  have  vowed 
that  this  son  of  Baal  shall  go  to  his  doom  and  bite 
the  dust. 

Finally,  and  quickly  too  (for  events  move  with 
railroad  speed),  his  trial  comes  — the  trial  of  a 
King.  A strange  event  for  these  English,  who 
have  venerated  and  feared  and  idolized  so  many 
kings  and  queens  of  so  many  royal  lines.  How  the 
Eoyalist  verse-makers  must  have  fumed  and  raved  ! 
Milton,  then  just  turned  of  forty,  was,  as  I have 
said,  living  near  High  Holborn ; the  King  was  eight 
years  his  senior  — was  in  custody  at  St.  James’s,  a 
short  way  above  Piccadilly.  He  brought  to  the 
trial  all  his  kingly  dignity,  and  wore  it  unflinch- 
ingly— refusing  to  recognize  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Parliament,  cuddling  always  obstinately  that 
poor  figment  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  — which 
even  then  Milton,  down  in  his  Holborn  garden,  was 
sharpening  his  pen  to  undermine  and  destroy. 

The  sentence  was  death  — a sentence  that  gave 


EXECUTION  OF  CHARLES,  163 

pause  to  many.  Fairfax,  and  others  such,  would 
have  declared  against  it ; even  crop-eared  Prynne, 
who  had  suffered  so  much  for  his  truculent  Puri- 
tanism, protested  against  it ; two-thirds  of  the  pop- 
ulation of  England  would  have  done  the  same  ; but 
London  and  England  and  the  army  were  all  in  the 
grip  of  an  iron  man  whose  name  was  Cromwell. 
Time  sped  ; the  King  had  only  two  days  to  live  ; 
his  son  Charles  was  over  seas,  never  believing 
such  catastrophe  could  happen ; only  two  royal 
children  — a princess  of  thirteen  and  a boy  of  eight 
— came  to  say  adieu  to  the  royal  prisoner.  ‘‘  He 
sat  with  them  some  time  at  the  window,  taking 
them  on  his  knees,  and  kissing  them,  and  talking 
with  them  of  their  duty  to  their  mother,  and  to 
their  elder  brother,  the  Prince  of  Wales,”  He  car- 
ried his  habitual  dignity  and  calmness  with  him  on 
the  very  morning,  going  between  files  of  soldiers 
through  St.  James’s  Park  — pointing  out  a tree 
which  his  brother  Henry  had  planted  — and  on, 
across  to  Whitehall,  where  had  come  off  many  a 
gay,  rollicking  masque  of  Ben  Jonson’s,  in  presence 
of  his  father,  James  I.  He  was  led  through  the 
window  of  the  banqueting-hall  — the  guides  show 


164 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


it  now  — where  he  had  danced  many  a night, 
and  so  to  the  scaffold,  just  without  the  window, 
whence  he  could  see  up  and  down  the  vast  court 
of  Whitehall,  from  gate  to  gate,*  paved  with  a 
great  throng  of  heads.  Even  then  and  there 
rested  on  him  the  same  kingly  composure ; the  fine 
oval  face,  pale  but  unmoved  ; the  peaked  beard 
carefully  trimmed,  as  you  see  it  in  the  well-known 
pictures  by  Vandyke,  at  Windsor  or  at  Blenheim. 

He  has  a word  with  old  Bishop  Juxon,  who 
totters  beside  him  ; a few  words  for  others  who 
are  within  hearing ; examines  the  block,  the  axe ; 
gives  some  brief  cautions  to  the  executioner ; 
then,  laying  down  his  head,  lifts  his  own  hand 
for  signal,  and  with  a crunching  thud  of  sound 
it  is  over. 

And  poet  Milton  — has  he  shown  any  relenting  ? 
Not  one  whit ; he  is  austere  among  the  most  aus- 
tere; in  this  very  week  he  is  engaged  upon  his 
defence  of  regicide,  with  its  stinging,  biting  sen- 

* In  that  day  Whitehall  Street  was  separated  from  Charing 
Cross  by  the  famous  gate  of  Holbeins  ; and  in  the  other  di 
recti  on  it  was  crossed,  near  Old  Palace  Yard,  by  the  King’s- 
Street  Gate  — thus  forming  a vast  court. 


SECRE  TARY  MIL  TON.  1 65 

tences.  He  is  a friend  and  party  to  the  new  Com- 
monwealth ; two  months  only  after  the  execution 
of  the  King,  he  is  appointed  Secretary  to  the  State 
Council,  and  under  it  is  conducting  the  Latin  cor- 
respondence. He  demolishes,  by  order  of  the  same 
Council,  the  Eikon  Badlike  (supposed  in  that  day 
to  be  the  king’s  work)  with  his  fierce  onslaught  of 
the  Eikonoklastes.  His  words  are  bitter  as  gall ; he 
even  alludes,  in  no  amiable  tone — with  acrid  em- 
phasis, indeed  — to  the  absurd  rumor,  current  with 
some,  that  the  King,  through  his  confidential  in- 
strument, Buckingham,  had  poisoned  his  own  fa- 
ther. 

He  is  further  appointed  to  the  answering  of  Sal- 
masius,*  an  answer  with  which  all  Europe  pres- 
ently rings.  It  was  in  these  days,  and  with  such 
work  crowding  him,  that  his  vision  fails ; and  to 
these  days,  doubtless  belongs  that  noble  sonnet  on 

♦Salmasius,  a Leyden  professor,  had  been  commissioned 
by  Royalists  to  write  a defence  of  Charles  I.,  and  vindicate 
his  memory.  Milton  was  commissioned  to  reply ; and  the 
result  was  — a Latin  battle  in  Billingsgate. 

Milton  calls  his  antagonist  “ a grammatical  louse,  whose 
only  treasure  of  merit  and  hope  of  fame  consisted  in  a glos- 
sary.** 


1 66  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

his  blindness,  which  is  worth  our  staying  for,  here 
and  now : 

‘ ‘ When  I consider  how  my  light  is  spent 
Ere  half  my  days,  in  this  dark  world  and  wide, 

And  that  one  talent,  which  is  death  to  hide, 

Lodged  with  me  useless,  though  my  soul  more  bent 
To  serve  therewith  my  Maker,  and  present 
My  true  account,  lest  he,  returning,  chide  ; 

‘ Dost  God  exact  day-labor,  light  denied  ? * 

I fondly  ask  : But  Patience,  to  prevent 
That  murmur,  soon  replies  — ‘ God  doth  not  need 
Either  man’s  work,  or  his  own  gifts  ; who  best 
Bear  his  mild  yoke,  they  serve  him  best  ; his  state 
Is  kingly  ; thousands  at  his  bidding  speed 
And  post  o’er  land  and  ocean  without  rest ; 

They  also  serve,  who  only  stand  and  wait.’  ” 

Wonderful,  is  it  not,  that  such  a sonnet — so  full 
of  rare  eloquence  and  rare  philosophy  — so  full  of 
all  that  most  hallows  our  infirm  humanity  could  be 
written  by  one — pouring  out  his  execrations  on 
the  head  of  Salmasius  — at  strife  in  his  own  house- 
hold— at  strife  (as  we  shall  find)  with  his  own 
daughters?  Wonderful,  is  it  not,  that  Carlyle 
could  write  as  he  did  about  the  heroism  of  the 
humblest  as  well  as  bravest,  and  yet  grow  into  a 
rage  — over  his  wife’s  shoulders  and  at  her  cost  — 


CHARLES  IL 


167 


with  a rooster  crowing  in  his  neighbor’s  yard? 
Ah,  well,  the  perfect  ones  have  not  yet  come  upon 
our  earth,  whatever  perfect  poems  they  may  write. 

Change  of  Kings. 

But  at  last  comes  a new  turn  of  the  wheel  to 
English  fortunes.  Cromwell  is  dead  ; the  Common- 
wealth is  ended  ; all  London  is  throwing  its  cap  in 
the  air  over  the  restoration  of  Charles  IL  Poor 
blind  Milton  ^ is  in  hiding  and  in  peril.  His  name 
is  down  among  those  accessory  to  the  murder  of 
the  King.  The  ear-cropped  Prynne  — who  is  now 
in  Parliament,  and  who  hates  Milton  as  Milton 
scorned  Prynne  — is  very  likely  hounding  on  those 
who  would  bring  the  great  poet  to  judgment.  ’Tis 
long  matter  of  doubt.  Past  his  house  near  Bed 
Lion  Square  the  howling  mob  drag  the  bodies  of 
Cromwell  and  Ireton,  and  hang  them  in  their  dead 
ghastliness. 

Milton,  however,  makes  lucky  escape,  with  only  a 
short  term  of  prison  ; but  for  some  time  thereafter 
he  was  in  fear  of  assassination.  Such  a rollicking 


*His  blindness  dating  from  the  year  1652. 


1 68  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 

daredevil,  as  Scott  in  his  story  of  Woodstock,  has 
painted  for  us  in  Eoger  Wildrake  (of  whom  there 
were  many  afloat  in  those  times)  would  have  liked 
no  better  fun  than  to  run  his  rapier  through  such  a 
man  as  John  Milton  ; and  in  those  days  he  would 
have  been  pardoned  for  it. 

That  capital  story  of  Woodstock  one  should  read 
when  they  are  upon  these  times  of  the  Common- 
wealth. There  are,  indeed,  anachronisms  in  it ; 
kings  escaping  too  early  or  too  late,  or  dying  a little 
out  of  time  to  accommodate  the  exigencies  of  the 
plot  ; but  the  characterization  is  marvellously 
spirited ; and  you  see  the  rakehelly  cavaliers,  and 
the  fine  old  king-ridden  knights,  and  the  sour- 
mouthed Independents,  and  the  glare  and  fumes 
and  madness  of  the  civil  war,  as  you  find  them  in 
few  history  pages. 

Milton,  meanwhile,  in  his  quiet  home  again,  re- 
volves his  old  project  of  a great  sacred  poem.  He 
taxes  every  visitor  who  can,  to  read  to  him  in 
Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  Dutch.  His  bookly  appetite 
is  omnivorous.  His  daughters  have  large  share  of 
this  toil.  Poor  girls,  they  have  been  little  taught, 
and  not  wisely  They  read  what  they  read  only  by 


JOHN  MILTON.  169 

rote,  and  count  it  severe  taskwork.  Their  mother 
is  long  since  dead,  and  a second  wife,  who  lived 
only  for  a short  time,  dead  too.  We  know  very 
little  of  that  second  wife ; but  she  is  embalmed 
forever  in  a sonnet,  from  which  I steal  this  frag- 
ment : — 

“ Me  thought  I saw  my  late  espoused  saint 
Brought  to  me,  like  Alcestis  from  the  grave  ; 

Her  face  was  veiled,  yet  to  my  fancied  sight 
Love,  sweetness,  goodness  in  her  person  shin’d 
So  clear  as  in  no  face  with  more  delight. 

But  oh,  as  to  embrace  me  she  inclined 
I waked,  she  fled,  and  daybrought  back  my  night.” 

The  Miltonian  reading  and  the  work  goes  on, 
but  affection,  I fear,  does  not  dominate  the  house- 
hold ; the  daughters  overtasked,  with  few  indul- 
gences, make  little  rebellions  ; and  the  blind, 
exacting  old  man  is  as  unforgiving  as  the  law. 
Americans  should  take  occasion  to  see  the  great 
picture  by  Munkacsy,  in  the  Lenox  Gallery,  New 
York,  of  Milton  dictating  Paradise  Lost ; it  is  in  it- 
self a poem  ; a dim  Puritan  interior ; light  com- 
ing through  a latticed  window  and  striking  on  the 


170 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


pale,  something  cadaverous  face  of  the  old  poet, 
who  sits  braced  in  his  great  armchair,  with  lips  set 
together,  and  the  daughters,  in  awed  attention,  lis- 
tening or  seeming  to  listen. 

I am  sorry  there  is  so  large  room  to  doubt  of 
the  intellectual  and  affectionate  sympathy  existing 
between  them  ; nevertheless  — that  it  did  not  is 
soberly  true ; his  own  harsh  speeches,  which  are 
of  record,  show  it  ; their  petulant  innuendoes, 
which  are  also  of  record,  show  it. 

Into  this  clouded  household  — over  which  love 
does  not  brood  so  fondly  as  we  would  choose  to 
think  — there  comes  sometimes,  with  helpfulness 
and  sympathy,  a certain  Andrew  Marvell,  who  had 
been  sometime  assistant  to  Milton  in  his  official 
duties,  and  who  takes  his  turn  at  the  readings,  and 
sees  only  the  higher  and  better  lights  that  shine 
there  ; and  he  had  written  sweet  poems  of  his 
own,  (to  which  I shall  return)  that  have  kept  his 
name  alive,  and  that  will  keep  it  alive,  I think, 
forever. 

There  comes  also  into  this  home,  in  these  days, 
very  much  to  the  surprise  and  angerment  of  the 
three  daughters,  a third  wife  to  the  old  poet,  after 


PARADISE  LOST. 


171 

some  incredibly  short  courtship.^  She  is  only 
seven  years  the  senior  of  the  daughter  Anne  ; but 
she  seems  to  have  been  a sensible  young  person, 
not  bookishly  given,  and  looking  after  the  house- 
hold, while  Anne  and  Mary  and  Deborah  still  wait, 
after  a fashion,  upon  the  student-wants  of  the  poet. 
In  fits  of  high  abstraction  he  is  now  bringing  the 
“ Paradise  ” to  a close  — not  knowing,  or  not  car- 
ing, maybe,  for  the  little  bickerings  which  rise  and 
rage  and  die  away  in  the  one-sided  home. 

I cannot  stay  to  characterize  his  great  poem  ; nor 
is  there  need ; immortal  in  more  senses  than  one  ; 
humanity  counts  for  little  in  it ; one  pair  of  human 
creatures  only,  and  these  looked  at,  as  it  were, 
through  the  big  end  of  the  telescope  ; with  gigan- 
tic, Godlike  figures  around  one,  or  colossal  demons 
prone  on  fiery  floods.  It  is  not  a child’s  book  ; to 
place  it  in  schools  as  a parsing-book  is  an  atrocity 
that  I hope  is  ended.  Not,  I think,  till  we  have 
had  some  fifty  years  to  view  the  everlasting  fight 
between  good  and  evil  in  this  world,  can  we  see  in 

* This  marriage  took  place  on  February  24,  1662-63,  the 
age  of  the  bride  being  twenty-five,  and  Milton  in  his  fifty- 
fifth  year. 


172 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


proper  perspective  the  vaster  battle  which,  under 
Milton’s  imagination,  was  pictured  in  Paradise  be- 
tween the  same  foes.  Years  only  can  so  widen 
one’s  horizon  as  to  give  room  for  the  reverberations 
of  that  mighty  combat  of  the  powers  of  light  and 
darkness. 

We  talk  of  the  organ-music  of  Milton.  The 
term  has  its  special  significance ; it  gives  hint  of 
that  large  quality  which  opens  heavenly  spaces  with 
its  billows  of  sound ; which  translates  us  ; which 
gives  us  a lookout  from  supreme  heights,  and  so 
lifts  one  to  the  level  of  his  “ Argument.”  There  is 
large  learning  in  his  great  poem  — weighty  and 
recondite ; but  this  spoils  no  music ; great,  cum- 
brous names  catch  sonorous  vibrations  under  his 
modulating  touch,  and  colossal  shields  and  spears 
clash  together  like  cymbals.  The  whole  burden 
of  his  knowledges  — Pagan,  Christian,  or  Hebraic, 
lift  up  and  sink  away  upon  the  undulations  of  his 
sublime  verse,  as  heavy-laden  ships  rise  and  fall 
upon  some  great  ground-swell  making  in  from 
outer  seas. 

A bookish  color  is  pervading ; if  he  does  not 
steal  flowers  from  books,  he  does  what  is  better  — 


PARADISE  LOST. 


173 


he  shows  the  fruit  of  them.  There  are  stories  of 
his  debt  to  Caedmon,  and  still  more  authentic,  of 
his  debt  to  the  Dutch  poet  Vondel,*  and  the  old 
Proven9al  Bishop  of  Vienne,  f who  as  early  as  the 
beginning  of  the  sixth  century  wrote  on  kindred 
themes.  There  is  hardly  room  for  doubt  that 
Milton  not  only  knew,  but  literally  translated  some 
of  the  old  Bishop’s  fine  Latin  lines,  and  put  to  his 
larger  usage  some  of  his  epithets. 

Must  we  not  admit  that  — in  the  light  of  such 


* Vondel,  b.  1587  (at  Cologne)  ; d.  1679.  He  was  tbe 
author  of  many  dramatic  pieces,  among  which  were  “ Jeph- 
tha,”  “ Marie  Stuart,”  “ Lucifer  ” {Luisevaar).  Vondel  also 
wrote  *‘Adam  in  Exile, and  ‘‘Samson,  or  Divine  Ven- 
geance.^’ This  latter,  according  to  a writer  in  The  Atlie' 
nmum  of  November  7,  1885,  has  suspicious  points  of  resem- 
blance with  “ Samson  Agonistes.” 

Other  allied  topics  of  interest  are  discussed  in  same  jour- 
nal’s notice  of  George  Edmundson’s  book  on  the  Milton  and 
Vondel  question  (Triibner  & Co.,  London,  1885). 

Vondel  survived  the  production  of  his  “Lucifer”  by 
a quarter  of  a century,  and  died  five  years  after  Mil- 
ton. 

f Avitus  was  Bishop  of  Vienne  (succeeding  his  father  and 
grandfather)  about  400.  His  poem,  “ De  Initio  Mundi,” 
was  in  Latin  hexameters.  See  interesting  account  of  same 
in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  January,  1890. 


174  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

developments  — when  the  Puritan  poet  boasts  of 
discoursing  on 

“ Things  unattempted  jet  in  prose  or  rhyme,” 

that  it  is  due  to  a little  lurking  stimulant  of  that 
Original  Sin  which  put  bitterness  into  his  Sal- 
masian  papers,  and  an  ugly  arrogance  into  his  do- 
mestic discipline  ? But,  after  all,  he  was  every  way 
greater  than  his  forerunners,  and  can  afford  to  ad- 
mit Csedmon  and  Vondel  and  Avitus,  and  all  other 
claimants,  as  supporting  columns  in  the  underlying 
ciypt  upon  which  was  builded  the  great  temple  of 
his  song. 

Last  Days. 

The  home  of  Milton  in  these  latter  days  of  his 
life  was  often  changed.  Now,  it  was  Holborn 
again  ; then  Jewin  Street ; then  Bunhill  Kow  ; and 
— one  while  — for  a year  or  more,  when  the  great 
plague  of  1665  desolated  the  city,  he  fled  before  it 
to  the  little  village  of  Chalfont,  some  twenty  miles 
distant  from  London  on  the  Aylesbury  road. 
There  the  cottage  * may  still  be  seen  in  which  he 


The  cottage  is  a half-timber,  gable  fronted  building,  and 
has  Milton's  name  inscribed  over  the  door.  The  village 


MILTON^ S LAST  DAYS, 


175 


lived,  and  the  garden  in  which  he  walked  — but 
never  saw.  There,  too,  is  the  latticed  window  look- 
ing on  the  garden,  at  which  he  sat  hour  by  hour, 
with  the  summer  winds  blowing  on  him  from  over 
honeysuckle  beds,  while  he  brooded,  with  sightless 
eyes  turned  to  the  sky,  upon  the  mysteries  of  fate 
and  foreknowledge. 

A young  Quaker,  Ellwood,  perhaps  his  dearest 
friend,  comes  to  see  him  there,  to  read  to  him  and 
to  give  a helping  hand  to  the  old  man’s  study  ; his 
daughters,  too,  are  at  their  helpful  service  ; grate- 
ful, maybe,  that  even  the  desolation  of  the  plague 
has  given  a short  relief  from  the  dingy  house  in 
the  town  and  its  treadmill  labors,  and  put  the  joy 
of  blooming  flowers  and  of  singing  birds  into  their 
withered  hearts. 

The  year  after,  which  finds  them  in  Bunhill  Row 
again,  brings  that  great  London  fire  which  the 
Monument  now  commemorates  ; they  passing  three 
days  and  nights  upon  the  edge  of  that  huge  tem- 

is  reached  by  a branch  of  the  L.  & N.  W.  B.  B.  American 
visitors  will  also  look  with  interest  at  the  burial  place  of 
William  Penn,  who  lies  in  a “place  of  graves”  behind  the 
Friends’  Meeting  House  — a mile  and  a half  only  from 
Chalfont  Church. 


176  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

pest  of  flame  and  smoke  which  devoured  nearly 
two-thirds  of  London  ; the  old  poet  hearing  the  din 
and  roar  and  crackle,  and  feeling  upon  his  forehead 
the  waves  of  fierce  heat  and  the  showers  of  cinders 
— a scene  and  an  experience  which  might  have 
given,  perhaps,  other  color  to  his  pictures  of  Pande- 
monium, if  his  great  poem  had  not  been  just  now, 
in  these  fateful  years,  completed  — completed  and 
bargained  for ; £20  were  to  be  paid  for  it  condi- 
tionally,* in  four  payments  of  £5  each,  at  a day 
when  London  had  been  decimated  by  the  plague, 
and  half  the  city  was  a waste  of  ruin  and  ashes. 
And  to  give  an  added  tint  of  blackness  to  the  pict- 
ure, we  have  to  fancy  his  three  daughters  leaving 
him,  as  they  did,  tired  of  tasks,  tired  of  wrangling. 
Anne,  the  infirm  one,  who  neither  read  nor  wrote, 
and  Mary,  so  overworked,  and  Deborah,  the  young- 
est (latterly  being  very  helpful)  — all  desert  him. 
They  never  return.  “ Undutiful  daughters,’’  he 
says  to  Ellwood  ; but  I think  he  does  not  soften 

* The  terms  were  £5  down  ; another  £5  after  sale  of  1,300 
copies,  and  two  eqnal  sums  on  further  sale  of  two  other  edi- 
tions of  same  number.  The  family  actually  compounded 
for  £18,  before  the  third  edition  was  entirely  sold. 


MILTON LAST  DAYS, 


177 


toward  them,  even  when  gone.  Poor,  stem,  old 
man ! He  would  have  cut  them  off  by  will  from 
their  small  shares  of  inheritance  in  his  estate ; but 
the  courts  wisely  overruled  this.  Anne,  strangely 
enough,  married — dying  shortly  after;  Mary  died 
years  later,  a spinster ; and  Deborah,  who  became 
Mrs.  Clark,  had  some  notice,  thirty  years  later, 
when  it  was  discovered  that  a quiet  woman  of  that 
name  was  Milton's  daughter.  But  she  seems  to 
have  been  of  a stolid  make;  no  poetry,  no  high 
sense  of  dignity  belonging  to  her  ; a woman  like 
ten  thousand,  whose  descendants  are  now  said 
(doubtfully)  to  be  living  somewhere  in  India. 

But  Milton  wrought  on  ; his  wife  Betty,  of  whom 
he  spoke  more  affectionately  than  ever  once  of  his 
daughters,  humored  his  poor  fagged  appetites  of  the 
table.  Paradise  Begained  was  in  hand  ; and  later 
the  “ Samson  Agonistes.”  His  habits  were  regular ; 
up  at  five  o'clock ; a chapter  of  the  Hebrew  Bible 
read  to  him  by  his  daughter  Mary  — what  time  she 
stayed ; an  early  breakfast,  and  quiet  lonely  con- 
templation after  it  (his  nephew  tells  us)  till  seven. 
Then  work  came,  putting  Quaker  Ellwood  to  help- 
ful service,  or  whoever  happened  in,  and  could 
IT-— 13 


178  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 

fathom  the  reading  — this  lasting  till  mid-day  din- 
ner ; afterward  a walk  in  his  garden  (when  he  had 
one)  for  two  hours,  in  his  old  gray  suit,  in  which 
many  a time  passers-by  saw  him  sitting  at  his  door. 
There  was  singing  in  later  afternoon,  when  there 
was  a voice  to  sing  for  him;  and  instrumental 
music,  when  his,  or  a friendly  hand  touched  the 
old  organ.  After  supper,  a pipe  and  a glass  of 
water ; always  persistently  temperate  ; and  then, 
night  and  rest. 

He  attended  no  church  in  his  later  years,  find- 
ing none  in  absolute  agreement  with  his  beliefs  ; 
sympathizing  with  the  Quakers  to  a certain  degree, 
with  the  orthodox  Independents  too ; but  flaming 
up  at  any  procrustean  laws  for  faith  ; never  giv- 
ing over  a certain  tender  love,  I think,  for  the  or- 
gan-music and  storied  splendors  of  the  Anglican 
Church ; but  with  a wild,  broad  freedom  of  thought 
chafing  at  any  ecclesiastic  law  made  by  man, 
that  galled  him  or  checked  his  longings.  His 
clear,  clean  intellect — not  without  its  satiric  jost- 
lings  and  wrestlings  — its  petulancies  and  caprices 
— sought  and  maintained,  independently,  its  own 
relation  with  God  and  the  mysterious  future. 


MILTON^ S LAST  DAYS. 


179 


Our  amiable  Dr.  Channing,  with  excellent  data 
before  him,  demonstrated  his  good  Unitarian  faith  ; 
but  though  Milton  might  have  approved  his  nice 
reasonings,  I doubt  if  he  would  have  gone  to  church 
with  him.  He  loved  liberty  ; he  could  not  travel 
well  in  double  harness,  not  even  in  his  household 
or  with  the  elders.  His  exalted  range  of  vision 
made  light  of  the  little  aids  and  lorgnettes  which 
the  conventional  teachers  held  out  to  him.  Creeds 
and  dogmas  and  vestments  and  canons,  and  all  hu- 
manly consecrated  helps,  were  but  Jack-o’-lanterns 
to  him,  who  was  swathed  all  about  with  the  glowing 
clouds  of  glory  that  rolled  in  upon  his  soul  from 
the  infinite  depths. 

In  the  year  1674  — he  being  then  sixty-five  years 
old  — on  a Sunday,  late  at  night,  he  died  ; and  with 
so  little  pain  that  those  who  were  with  him  did  not 
know  when  the  end  came.  He  was  buried — not 
in  the  great  cemetery  of  Bunhill  Fields,  close  by  his 
house  — but  beside  his  father,  in  the  old  parish 
church  of  St.  Giles,  Cripplegate,  where  he  had  been 
used  to  go  as  a boy,  and  where  he  had  been  used  to 
hear  the  old  burial  Office  for  the  Dead  — now  in- 
toned over  his  grave  — A^^hes  to  ashes,  dust  to  duslT 


i8o 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


There  was  no  need  for  the  monument  erected  to 
him  there  in  recent  years.  His  poems  make  a mon- 
ument that  is  read  of  all  the  world,  and  will  be  read 
in  all  times  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  V. 


S we  launched  upon  the  days  of  Charles  L,  in 


our  last  talk,  we  had  somewhat  to  say  of  the 
King’s  advisers,  lay  and  ecclesiastic ; we  came  to 
quick  sense  of  the  war  - clouds,  fast  gathering, 
through  which  Jeremy  Taylor  shot  his  flashes  of 
pious  eloquence ; we  heard  a strain  of  Suckling’s 
verse,  to  which  might  have  been  added  other,  and 
may  be  better,  from  such  Royalist  singers  as  Carew 
or  Lovelace  ; * but  we  cannot  swoop  all  the  birds 
into  our  net.  We  had  glimpse  of  the  crop-eared 
Prynne  of  the  JSistriomastix ; and  from  Cowley,  that 
sincere  friend  of  both  King  and  Queen  in  the  days 
of  their  misfortunes,  we  plucked  some  Poetical 

* Carew,  b.  about  1589  ; d.  1639 ; full  of  lyrical  arts  and 
of  brazen  sensuality.  Lovelace,  b.  1618;  d.  1658  ; a careless 
master  of  song,  whom  wealth  and  royal  favor  did  not  save 
from  a death  of  want  and  despair. 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


182 

Blossoms;”  also  a charming  ‘‘Rose,”  from  the  or- 
derly parterres  of  that  great  gardener,  and  pomp- 
ous, time-serving  man,  Edmund  Waller. 

Then  came  Milton  with  the  fairy  melodies, 
always  sweet,  of  Comus  ” — the  cantankerous  pam- 
phleteering — the  soured  home-life  — the  bloody 
thrusts  at  the  image  of  the  King,  and  the  grander 
flight  of  his  diviner  music  into  the  coui’ts  of  Para- 
dise. 


Charles  II,  and  his  Friends. 

Some  fourteen  years  or  so  before  the  death  of 
Milton,  the  restoration  of  Charles  11.  had  come 
about.  He  had  drifted  back  upon  the  traces  of 
the  stout  Oliver  Cromwell,  and  of  the  feebler  Rich- 
ard Cromwell,  on  a great  tide  of  British  enthusi- 
asm. Independents,  Presbyterians,  Church  of  Eng- 
land men,  and  Papists  were  all  by  the  ears ; and  it 
did  seem  to  many  among  the  shrewdest  of  even  the 
Puritan  workers  that  some  balance-wheel  (of  what- 
ever metal),  though  weighted  with  royal  traditions 
and  hereditary  privileges,  might  keep  the  govern- 
mental machinery  to  the  steady  working  of  old  days. 

So  the  Second  Charles  had  come  back,  with  a 


CHARLES  IL 


183 

great  throwing  up  of  caps  all  through  the  London 
streets  ; Presbyterians  giving  him  welcome  because 
he  was  sure  to  snub  the  Independents ; the  Inde- 
pendents giving  him  welcome  because  he  was  sure 
to  snub  the  Presbyterians ; the  Church  of  England 
men  giving  him  welcome  because  he  was  sure  to 
snub  both  (as  he  did) ; and  finally,  the  Papists  giv- 
ing him  high  welcome  because  all  other  ways  their 
hopes  were  lean  and  few. 

You  know,  or  should  know,  what  manner  of  man 
he  was : accomplished  — in  his  way  ; an  expert 
swordsman;  an  easy  talker — capable  of  setting  a 
tableful  of  gentlemen  in  a roar ; telling  stories 
inimitably,  and  a great  many  of  them  ; full  of  grim- 
aces that  would  have  made  his  fortune  on  the  stage  ; 
saying  sweetest  things,  and  meaning  the  worst 
things  ; a daredevil  who  feared  neither  God  nor 
man  ; generous,  too  — most  of  all  in  his  cups  ; and 
liberal — with  other  peoples’  money;  hating  busi- 
ness with  all  his  soul ; loving  pleasure  with  all  his 
heart ; ready  always  to  do  kindness  that  cost  him 
nothing  ; laughing  at  all  Puritans  and  purity ; yet 
winning  the  maudlin  affection  of  a great  many  peo- 
ple, and  the  respect  of  none. 


184 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  country  gentlemen 
of  England,  of  good  blood,  who  had  sniffed  scorn- 
fully at  the  scent  of  the  beer-vats  which  hung  about 
the  name  of  Cromwell,  welcomed  this  clever, 
swarthy,  black-haired,  dissolute  Prince,  who  had  a 
pedigree  which  ran  back  on  the  father’s  side  to  the 
royal  Bruce  of  Scotland,  and  on  the  mother’s  side 
to  the  great  Clovis,  and  to  the  greater  Charle- 
magne. 

You  will  find  a good  glimpse  of  this  scion  of 
royalty  in  Scott’s  story  of  Peveril  of  the  Peak. 
The  novel  is  by  no  means  one  of  the  great  roman- 
cer’s best ; but  it  is  well  worth  reading  for  the  clear 
and  vivid  idea  it  will  give  one  of  the  social  clashings 
between  the  reserves  of  old  Puritanism  and  the  in- 
continencies  of  new  monarchism  ; you  will  find  in 
it  an  excellent  sample  of  the  gruff,  stalwart  Crom- 
wellian ; and  another  of  the  hot-tempered,  swearing 
cavalier  ; and  still  others  of  the  mincing,  scheming, 
gambling,  roystering  crew  which  overran  all  the 
purlieus  of  the  court  of  Charles.  Buckingham 
was  there  — that  second  Villiers,*  of  whom  I had 


George  Villiers,  b.  1G27  ; d.  1688. 


BUCKINGHAM  ROCHESTER.  185 

somewhat  to  say  when  the  elder  Buckingham  came 
up  for  mention  in  the  days  of  Charles  L;  this 
younger  Villiers  running  before  the  elder  in  all 
accomplishments  and  all  Yillainies ; courtly ; of 
noble  bearing ; with  daintiest  of  speeches ; a pattern 
of  manly  graces ; capable  of  a tender  French  song, 
with  all  his  tones  in  exultant  accord  with  best  of 
court  singers,  and  of  a comedy  that  drew  all  the 
playgoers  of  London  to  the  ‘‘  Rehearsal ; ” capable 
too,  of  the  wickedest  of  plots  and  of  the  foulest  of 
lies.  And  yet  this  Buckingham  was  one  of  the  best 
accredited  advisers  of  the  Crown. 

To  the  same  court  belonged  Rochester,*  his  great, 
fine  wig  covering  a great,  fine  brain ; he  writing 
harmonious  verses  about — ‘^Nothing”  — or  worse 
than  nothing  ; and  at  the  last  wheedling  Bishop 
Burnet  into  the  belief  that  he  had  changed  his 
courses,  and  that  if  he  might  rise  from  that  ugly 
deathbed  where  the  good-natured,  pompous  bishop 
sought  him,  he  would  be  enrolled  among  the  moral- 
ists. I think  it  was  lucky  that  he  died  with  such 
good  impulse  flashing  at  the  top  of  his  badnesses. 


*Earl  of  Rochester  (John  Wilmot),  b.  1647;  d.  1680. 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


1 86 

Dorset  belonged  to  this  court,  with  his  pretty 
verselets,  and  Sedley  and  Etherege ; also  the  Ports- 
mouth and  Lady  Castelmaine,  and  the  rest  of  those 
venturesome  ladies  who  show  their  colors  of  cheek 
and  bosom,  even  now,  in  the  well-handled  paintings 
of  Sir  Peter  Lely.  When  you  go  to  Hampton  Court 
you  can  see  these  fair  and  frail  beauties  by  the 
dozen  on  the  walls  of  the  King  William  room. 
Sir  Peter  Lely  * was  a rare  painter,  belonging  to 
these  times ; a great  favorite  of  Charles ; and  he 
loved  such  subjects  for  his  brush ; he  drew  the 
delicatest  hands  that  were  ever  put  on  canvas  — too 
delicate  and  too  small,  unfortunately,  to  cover  the 
undress  of  his  figures. 

But,  at  the  worst,  England  was  not  altogether  a 
Pandemonium  in  those  days  following  upon  the 
Kestoration.  I think,  perhaps,  the  majority  of  his- 
torians and  commentators  are  disposed  to  over-color 
the  orgies ; it  is  so  easy  to  make  prodigious  effects 
with  strong  sulphurous  tints  and  blazing  vermil- 
ions. Certain  it  is  that  Taine,  in  writing  of  these 
times,  has  put  an  almost  malignant  touch  into  his 


Sir  Peter  Lely,  b.  (in  Westplialia)  1617  ; d.  1680. 


RICHARD  BAXTER. 


187 


story,  blinking  the  fact  that  the  trail  which  shows 
most  of  corrupting  phosphorescence  came  over  the 
Channel  with  the  new  King ; forgetting  that  French 
breeding  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  new  tastes,  and 
that  French  gold  made  the  blazonry  of  the  chariots 
in  which  the  Jezebels  rode  on  their  triumphal  way 
through  London  to  — perdition. 

Then,  again,  English  vice  is  more  outspoken  and 
less  secretive  than  that  of  the  over-Channel  neigh- 
bors. It  is  now,  and  has  always  been  true,  that 
when  his  Satanic  majesty  takes  possession  of  a man 
(or  a woman),  he  can  cover  himself  in  sweeter  and 
more  impenetrable  disguise  under  the  pretty  pe- 
rukes and  charming  millinery  of  French  art  than 
in  a homely  British  body,  out  of  which  the  demon 
horns  stick  stark  through  all  the  wigs  and  cosme- 
tics that  art  can  put  upon  a man. 

It  is  worth  while  for  us  to  remember  that  in  this 
London,  when  the  elegant  Duke  of  Eochester  was 
beating  time  with  his  jewelled  hand  to  a French 
gallop,  Eichard  Baxter’s*  ever-living  Saints'  Best 
was  an  accredited  book,  giving  consolation  to  many 

* Richard  Baxter,  b.  1615  ; d.  1691.  His  Saints^  Best 
published  in  1653  (Lowndes). 


i88 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


a poor  soul  wrestling  with  the  fears  of  death  and  of 
future  judgment.  It  was  published,  indeed,  some- 
what earlier ; but  its  author  was  still  wakeful  and 
earnest ; and  many  a time  his  thin,  stooping  figure 
might  be  seen  threading  a way  through  the  street 
crowds  to  his  chapel  in  Southwark,  where  delighted 
listeners  came  to  hear  him,  almost  upon  the  very 
spot  where  Shakespeare,  eighty  years  before,  had 
played  in  the  Globe  Theatre. 

The  eloquent  Tillotson,  too,  in  these  times  — 
more  liberal  than  Baxter  or  Doddridge  — was  writ- 
ing upon  The  Wisdom  of  Being  Religious  and  the 
right  Rule  of  Faith,  and  by  his  catholicity  and  clear- 
headedness winning  such  favor  and  renown  ai^"  to 
bring  him  later  to  the  see  of  Canterbury. 

I would  have  you  keep  in  mind,  too,  that  Juhn 
Milton  was  still  alive  — his  “ Samson  Agonisies  ” 
not  being  published  until  Charles  11.  had  been 
some  twelve  years  upon  the  throne  — and  in  quiet 
seclusion  was  cultivating  and  cherishing  that  x^erene 
philosophy  which  glows  along  the  closing  line  of  his 
greatest  sonnet, 

“ They  also  serve  who  only  st^nd  and  wnit  I ” 


ANDRE  W MAR  VELL. 


189 


Andrew  Marvell* 

When  upon  the  subject  of  Milton,  I made  men- 
tion of  a certain  poet  who  used  to  go  and  see  him  in 
his  country  retirement,  and  who  was  also  assistant 
to  him  in  his  duties  as  Latin  Secretary  to  the 
Council.  This  was  Andrew  Marvell,^  a poet  of  so 
true  a stamp,  and  so  true  a man,  that  it  is  needful 
to  know  something  more  of  him. 

He  was  son  of  a preacher  at  Kingston-upon-Hull 
(or,  by  metonomy,  Hull)  in  the  north  of  England. 
In  a very  singular  way,  the  occasion  of  his  father's 
sudden  death  by  drowning  (if  current  tradition 
may  be  trusted)  was  also  the  occasion  of  the  young 
poet's  entrance  upon  greatly  improved  worldly  fort- 
une. 

The  story  of  it  is  this,  which  I tell  to  fix  his 
memory  better  in  mind.  Opposite  his  father’s  home, 
on  the  other  bank  of  the  Humber,  lived  a lady  with 
an  only  daughter,  the  idol  of  her  mother.  This 

* Andrew  Marvell,  b.  1620;  d.  1678.  Early  edition  of 
Life  and  Works 'by  CookQ^  1726.  (Later  reprints. ) Dr.  Gro* 
sart  also  a laborer  in  this  field. 


190  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

daughter  chanced  to  visit  Hull,  that  she  might  be 
present  at  the  baptism  of  one  of  Mr.  Marvell’s  chil- 
dren. A tempest  came  up  before  night,  and  the 
boatmen  declared  the  crossing  of  the  river  to  be 
dangerous  ; but  the  young  lady,  with  girlish  wilful- 
ness insisted,  notwithstanding  the  urgence  of  Mr. 
Marvell ; who,  finding  her  resolved,  went  with  her ; 
and  the  sea  breaking  over  the  boat  both  were  lost. 
The  despairing  mother  found  what  consolation  she 
could  in  virtually  adopting  the  young  Andrew  Mar- 
vell, and  eventually  bestowing  upon  him  her  whole 
fortune. 

This  opened  a career  to  him  which  he  was  not 
slow  to  follow  upon  with  diligence  and  steadiness. 
Well-taught,  well-travelled,  well-mannered,  he  went 
up  to  London,  and  was  there  befriended  by  those 
whose  friendship  insured  success.  He  was  liberal 
in  his  politics,  beautifully  tolerant  in  religious 
matters,  kept  a level  head  through  the  years  of 
Parliamentary  rule,  and  was  esteemed  and  admired 
by  both  Puritans  and  Eoyalists.  He  used  a sharp 
pen  in  controversy  and  wrote  many  pamphlets, 
some  of  which  even  now  might  serve  as  models  for 
incisive  speech  ; he  was  witty  with  the  wittiest ; was 


ANDREW  MARVELL.  191 

caustic,  humorous ; his  pages  adrip  with  classicisms ; 
and  he  had  a delicacy  of  raillery  that  amused,  and 
a power  of  logic  that  smote  heavily,  where  blows 
were  in  order.  He  was  for  a long  time  member  of 
Parliament  for  Hull,  and  by  his  honesties  of  speech 
and  pen,  made  himself  so  obnoxious  to  the  political 
jackals  about  Charles’s  court  — that  he  was  said  to 
be  in  danger  again  and  again  of  assassination  ; he 
finally  died  under  strong  (but  unfounded)  suspicion 
of  poisoning. 

Those  who  knew  him  described  him  as  of  mid- 
dling stature,  strong  set,  roundish  face,  cherry- 
cheeked, hazel-eyed,  brown-haired.”  ^ 

There  are  dainty  poems  of  his,  which  should  be 
read,  and  which  are  worth  remembering.  Take 
this,  for  instance,  from  his  Garden,  which  was  writ- 
ten by  him  first  in  Latin,  and  then  rendered  thus  : 

“ What  wondrous  life  is  this  I lead  ! 

Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head  ; 

The  luscious  clusters  of  a vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine  ; 

The  nectarine  and  curious  peach 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach  ; 


Aubrey. 


192 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I pass, 

Ensnared  with  flowers,  I fall  on  grass. 

Here  at  the  fountain’s  sliding  foot 
Or  at  some  fruit-tree’s  mossy  root. 

Casting  the  body’s  vest  aside 
My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide : 

There,  like  a bird,  it  sits  and  sings, 

Then  whets  and  claps  its  silver  wings, 

And,  till  prepared  for  longer  flight, 

Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light.” 

And  this  other  bit,  from  his  Appleton  House  " 
(Nuneaton),  still  more  full  of  rural  spirit : 

How  safe,  me  thinks,  and  strong  behind 
These  trees,  have  I encamped  my  mind, 

Where  beauty  aiming  at  the  heart 
Bends  in  some  tree  its  useless  dart. 

And  where  the  world  no  certain  shot 
Can  make,  or  me  it  toucheth  not. 

“ Bind  me,  ye  woodbines,  in  your  twines. 

Curl  me  about,  ye  gadding  vines, 

And,  oh,  so  close  your  circles  lace 
That  I may  never  leave  this  place  ! 

But,  lest  your  fetters  prove  too  weak 
Ere  I your  silken  bondage  break, 

Bo  you,  O brambles,  chain  me  too, 

And,  courteous  briars,  nail  me  through ! ” 

This  is  better  than  Eochester’s  ‘‘Nothing,”  and 
has  no  smack  of  Nell  Gwynne  or  of  Charles’s  court. 


SAMUEL  BUTLER. 


193 


Author  of  Hudibras. 

It  is  altogether  a different,  and  a far  less  worthy 
character  that  I now  bring  to  the  notice  of  the 
reader.  The  man  is  Samuel  Butler,^  and  the  book 
Hudibras  — a jingling,  doggerel  poem,  which  at  the 
time  of  its  publication  had  very  great  vogue  in  Lon- 
don, and  was  the  literary  sensation  of  the  hour  in 
a court  which  in  those  same  years  f had  received 
the  great  epic  of  Milton  without  any  noticeable 
ripple  of  applause. 

For  myself,  I have  no  great  admiration  for  Hudi- 
bras,  or  for  Mr.  Samuel  Butler.  He  was  witty,  and 
wise  in  a way,  and  coarse,  and  had  humor ; but  he 
was  of  a bar-room  stamp,  and  although  he  could 
make  a great  gathering  of  the  court  people  stretch 
their  sides  with  laughter,  it  does  not  appear  that  he 

* Samuel  Butler,  b.  1612  ; d.  1680.  Editions  of  Hudi~ 
hras  (his  chief  book)  are  many  and  multiform  ; that  of 
Bohn  perhaps  as  good  as  any.  His  posthumous  works,  not 
much  known,  were  published  in  1715.  No  scholarly  edi- 
ting of  his  works  or  life  has  been  done. 

f Paradise  Lost  appeared  1667  ; first  part  of  Hudibras, 
1663  ; third  part  not  till  1678. 

II. -^13 


194 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


had  any  high  sense  of  honor,  or  much  dignity  of 
character. 

Mr.  Pepys  (whose  memoirs  you  have  heard  of, 
and  of  whom  we  shall  have  more  to  tell)  says  that 
he  bought  the  book  one  day  in  the  Strand  because 
everybody  was  talking  of  it  — which  is  the  only  rea- 
son a good  many  people  have  for  buying  books ; 
and,  he  continues  — that  having  dipped  into  it, 
without  finding  much  benefit,  he  sold  it  next  day  in 
the  Strand  for  half-price.  But  poor  Mr.  Pepys,  in 
another  and  later  entry,  says,  ‘‘  I have  bought  Hu- 
dibras  again  ; everybody  does  talk  so  much  of  it ; ” 
which  is  very  like  Mr.  Pepys,  and  very  like  a good 
many  other  buyers  of  books. 

Hudibras  is,  in  fact,  a great,  coarse,  rattling.,  witty 
lunge  at  the  stiff  - neckedness  and  the  cropped 
heads  of  the  Puritans,  which  the  roistering  fellows 
about  the  palace  naturally  enjoyed  immensely.  He 
calls  the  Presbyterians, 

‘ * Such,  as  do  build  their  faith  upon 
The  holj  text  of  pike  and  gun ; 

Decide  all  controversies 
Bj  infallible  artillery ; 

And  prove  their  doctrines  orthodox 
By  apostolic  blows  and  knocks  ; 


SAMUEL  BUTLER. 


IQ5 

Call  fire  and  sword  and  desolation 
A godly,  thorougli  reformation, 

Which  always  must  be  going  on 
And  still  be  doing  — never  done  ; 

As  if  Religion  were  intended 
For  nothing  else  but  to  be  mended. 

A sect  whose  chief  devotion  lies 
In  odd,  perverse  antipathies, 

In  falling  out  with  that  or  this, 

And  finding  somewhat  still  amiss. 

That  with  more  care  keep  holyday, 

The  wrong  — than  others  the  right  way  ; 

Compound  for  sins  they  are  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  have  no  mind  to. 

The  self  same  thing  they  will  abhor 
One  way,  and  long  another  — for : 

Quarrel  with  mince-pies  and  disparage 
Their  best  and  dearest  friend  plum-porridge  ; 

Fat  pig  and  goose  itself  oppose, 

And  blaspheme  custard  thro’  the  nose.” 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  tell  the  story  of  the  poem 
— which,  indeed,  its  author  did  not  live  to  com- 
plete. Its  fable  was  undoubtedly  suggested  by  the 
far  larger  and  worthier  work  of  Cervantes  ; Hu- 
dibras  and  Ealpho  standing  in  the  place  of  the 
doughty  Knight  of  La  Mancha,  and  Sancho  Pan- 
za  ; but  there  is  a world  between  the  two. 


ig6 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Hudihras  had  also  the  like  honor  of  suggesting 
its  scheme  and  measure  and  jingle  to  an  early 
American  poem  — that  of  McFingal,  by  John  Trum- 
bull — in  which  our  compatriot  with  less  of  wit  and 
ribaldry,  but  equal  smoothness,  and  rhythmic  zest, 
did  so  catch  the  humor  of  the  Butler  work  in 
many  of  his  couplets  that  even  now  they  pass  mus- 
ter as  veritable  parts  of  Hudihras."^ 

Samuel  Butler  was  the  son  of  a farmer,  over  in  the 
pretty  Worcestershire  region  of  England  ; but  there 
was  in  him  little  sense  of  charming  ruralities  ; 
they  never  put  their  treasures  into  his  verse.  For 
sometime  he  was  in  the  household  of  one  of  Crom- 
well’s  generals, f who  lived  in  a stately  country-hall 

* Some  of  the  couplets  in  the  two  ran  so  nearly  together 
as  almost  to  collide.  Thus,  Butler  says : 

“He  that  runs  may  fight  again, 

Which  he  can  never  do  that’s  slain.” 

While  Trumbull’s  couplet  runs  thus  ; 

“ He  that  fights  and  runs  away 
May  live  to  fight  another  day.” 

f This  was  Sir  Samuel  Luke  of  Cople-Wood-End,  a Parlia- 
mentary leader  and  a man  of  probity  and  distinction,  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  particular  subject  of  Butler’s  lam- 


SAMUEL  BUTLER. 


197 


a little  way  out  of  Bedford ; again,  he  filled  some  de- 
pendency at  that  stately  Ludlow  Castle  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Wales  — forever  associated  with  the  music 
of  lElton’s  ‘‘Comus.”  It  was  after  the  Eestoration 
that  he  budded  out  in  his  anti-Puritan  lampoon  ; 
but  though  he  pandered  to  the  ruling  prejudices  of 
the  time,  he  was  not  successful  in  his  search  for 
place  and  emoluments  ; he  quarrelled  with  those 
who  laughed  loudest  at  his  buffoonery  and  died 
neglected.  His  name  is  to  be  remembered  as 
that  of  one  of  the  noticeable  men  of  this  epoch,  who 
wrote  a poem  bristling  aU  through  with  coarse  wit, 
and  whose  memory  is  kept  alive  more  by  the  sting- 
ing couplets  which  have  passed  from  his  pen  into 
common  speech  than  by  any  high  literary  merit  or 
true  poetic  savor.  His  chief  work  in  verse  must  be 
regarded  as  a happy,  witty  extravaganza,  which 
caused  so  riotous  a mirth  as  to  be  mistaken  for 
valid  fame.  The  poem  is  a curio  of  letters — a spec- 
imen of  literary  bric-a-brac  — an  old,  ingeniously 

poon.  His  own  letter-book,  however  (Egerton  Magazine^ 
cited  by  John  Brown  in  his  recent  Life  of  Bunyan^  p.  45) 
shows  him  to  have  been  much  more  a man  of  the  world 
than  was  Butler’s  caricature  of  a “ Colonel.” 


19^  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 

enamelled  snuff-box,  with  dirty  pictures  within  the 
Hd. 


Samuel  Pepys. 

I had  occasion  just  now  to  speak  of  the  Pepy^ 
Diary,  and  promised  later  and  further  talk  about 
its  author,  whom  we  now  put  in  focus,  and  shall 
pour  what  light  we  can  upon  him.* 

He  was  a man  of  fair  personal  appearance  and 
great  self-approval,  the  son  of  a well-to-do  London 
tailor,  and  fairly  educated ; but  the  most  piquant 
memorial  of  his  life  at  Cambridge  University  is  the 
‘‘admonition”  — which  is  of  record — of  his  having 
been  on  one  occasion  “scandalously  over-served 
with  drink.”  In  his  after  life  in  London  he  es- 
caped the  admonitions ; but  not  wholly  the  “ over- 
service ” in  ways  of  eating  and  drinking. 

Pepys  was  a not  far-off  kinsman  of  Lord  Sandwich 
(whom  he  strongly  resembled),  and  it  was  through 

* Samuel  Pepys  — whom  those  well  up  in  cockney  ways 
of  speech  persist  in  calling  “ Mr.  Peps  ” — was  born  1633 ; 
died  1703.  His  Diary,  running  from  1660  to  1669,  did 
not  see  the  light  until  1825.  Since  that  date  numerous 
editions  have  been  published  ; that  of  Bright,  the  best. 
See  also  Wheatley,  Samuel  Pepys  and  the  World  he  lived  in. 


SAMUEL  PEPYS. 


199 


that  dignitary’s  influence  that  he  ultimately  came 
into  a very  good  position  in  connection  with  the 
Admiralty,  where  he  was  most  intrepid  in  his  exam- 
ination of  tar  and  cordage,  and  brought  such  close 
scrutiny  to  his  duties  as  to  make  him  an  admirable 
official  in  the  Naval  Department  under  Charles  11. 
For  this  service,  however,  he  would  never  have  been 
heard  of,  any  more  than  another  straightforward, 
plodding  clerk  ; nor  would  he  have  been  heard  of 
for  his  book  about  naval  matters,  which  you  will 
hardly  find  in  any  library  in  the  country.  But  he 
did  write  a Diary ^ which  you  will  find  everywhere. 

It  is  a Diary  which,  beginning  in  1660,  the  first 
of  Charles’  reign,  covers  the  ten  important  succeed- 
ing years;  within  which  he  saw  regicides  hung 
and  quartered,  and  heard  the  guns  of  terrific  naval 
battles  with  the  Dutch,  and  braved  all  the  horrors  of 
the  Great  Plague  from  the  day  when  he  first  saw 
house-doors  with  a red  cross  marked  on  them,  and 
the  words  ‘‘  Lord,  have  mercy  on  us ! ” to  the  time 
when  ten  thousand  died  in  a week,  and  ‘‘little  noise 
was  heard,  day  or  night,  but  tolling  of  bells.”  Page 
after  page  of  his  Diary  is  also  given  to  the  great  fire 
of  the  following  year  — from  the  Sunday  night 


200 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


when  he  was  waked  by  his  maid  to  see  a big  light 
on  the  back  side  of  Mark  Lane,  to  the  following 
Thursday  when  two-thirds  of  the  houses  and  of  the 
churches  of  London  were  in  ashes. 

But  Pepys'  Diary  is  not  so  valued  for  its  story  of 
great  events  as  for  its  daily  setting  down  of  little 
unimportant  things  — of  the  plays  which  he  saw 
acted — of  the  dust  that  fell  on  the  theatre-goers 
from  the  galleries  — of  what  he  bought,  and  what 
he  conjectured,  and  what  his  wife  said  to  him, 
and  what  new  dresses  she  had,  and  how  he  slept 
comfortably  through  the  sermon  of  Dr.  So-and-So 
— just  as  you  and  I might  have  done  — never 
having  a thought  either  that  his  Diary  would 
ever  be  printed.  He  wrote  it,  in  fact,  in  a blind 
short-hand,  which  made  it  lie  unnoticed  and  un- 
detected for  a great  many  years,  until  at  last 
some  prying  Cambridge  man  unriddled  his  cipher 
and  wrote  out  and  published  Pepys'  Diary  to  the 
world.  And  it  is  delightful ; it  is  so  true  and 
honest,  and  straightforward,  and  gossipy ; and  it 
throws  more  light  upon  the  every-day  life  in  Lon- 
don in  those  days  of  the  Eestoration  than  all  the 
other  books  ever  written. 


PEP  VS'  DIARY. 


201 


There  have  been  other  diaries  which  have  historic 
value ; there  was  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon,*  with 
some  humor  and  a lordly  grace,  who  wrote  a His- 
tory  of  the  Rebellion  — more  than  half  diary  — with 
sentences  as  long  as  his  pages ; but  it  does  not  com- 
pare with  Pepys’  for  flashes  of  light  upon  the 
accidents  of  life.  There  was  good,  earnest,  well- 
meaning  John  Evelyn,  f who  had  a pretty  place 
called  Says-Court  (inherited  through  his  wife)  down 
at  Deptford  — which  Scott  introduces  as  the  resi- 
dence of  Essex  in  his  story  of  Kenilworth  — who 
had  beautiful  trees  and  flowers  there  which  he 
greatly  loved.  Well,  John  Evelyn  wrote  a diary, 
and  a very  good  one  ; with  perhaps  a better  de- 
scription of  the  great  London  fire  of  1666  in  it 
than  you  will  find  anywhere  else  ; he  gives  us,  too, 
a delightful  memorial  of  his  young  daughter  Mary 
— who  read  the  Ancients,  who  spoke  French  and 
Italian,  who  sang  like  an  angel,  who  was  as  gentle 
and  loving  as  she  was  wise  and  beautiful  — whose 

* Edward  Hjde,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  b.  1609  ; d.  1674. 
He  was  a man  of  large  literary  qualities,  and  his  History  is 
chiefly  prized  for  its  portraits. 

t John  Evelyn,  b.  1620  ; d.  1706. 


202 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


death  “ left  him  desolate ; but  John  Evelyn  is 
silent  upon  a thousand  points  in  respect  to  which 
Pepys  bristles  all  over  like  a gooseberry  bush.  Dr. 
Burnet,  too,  wrote  a Hidory  of  his  Own  Times, 
bringing  great  scholarly  attainments  to  its  execu- 
tion, and  a tremendous  dignity  of  authorship ; and 
he  would  certainly  have  turned  up  his  bishop’s 
nose  at  mention  of  Samuel  Pepys  ; yet  Pepys  is 
worth  a dozen  of  him  for  showing  the  life  of  that 
day.  He  is  so  simple  ; he  is  so  true  ; he  is  so  un- 
thinking ; he  is  the  veriest  photographer.  Hear 
him  for  a little  — and  I take  the  passages  almost  at 
random  : 

“ November  9,  1660. — Lay  long  in  bed  this  morning. 

“ To  the  office,  and  thence  to  dinner  at  the  Hoope  Tavern, 
given  us  by  Mr.  Ady  and  Mr.  Wine  the  King’s  fishmonger. 
Good  sport  with  Mr.  Talbot,  who  eats  no  sort  of  fish,  and 
there  was  nothing  else  till  we  sent  for  a neat’s  tongue. 

“Thence  I went  to  Sir  Harry  Wright’s,  where  my  Lord 
was  busy  at  cards,  and  so  I staid  below  with  Mrs.  Carter 
and  Evans,  who  did  give  me  a lesson  upon  the  lute,  till  he 
came  down,  and  having  talked  with  him  at  the  door  about 
his  late  business  of  money,  I went  to  my  father’s,  and  staid 
late  talking  with  my  father  about  my  sister  Poll’s  coming  to 
live  with  me  — if  she  would  come  and  be  as  a servant  (which 
my  wife  did  seem  to  be  pretty  willing  to  do  to-day)  ; and  he 
seems  to  take  it  very  well,  and  intends  to  consider  of  it.” 


PEPYS^  DIARY. 


203 


And  again  : 

“Home  by  coach,  notwithstanding  this  was  the  first  day 
of  the  King's  proclamation  against  hackney  coaches  coming 
into  the  streets  to  stand  to  be  hired ; yet  I got  one  to  carry 
me  home.*' 

Again : 

“11th  November^  LorWs  Day, — To  church  into  our 
new  gallery,  the  first  time  it  was  used.  There  being  no 
woman  this  day,  we  sat  in  the  foremost  pew,  and  behind 
us  our  servants,  and  I hope  it  will  not  always  be  so,  it 
not  being  handsome  for  our  servants  to  sit  so  equal  with 
us.  Afterward  went  to  my  father’s,  where  I found  my 
wife,  and  there  supped  ; and  after  supper  we  walked  home, 
my  little  boy  carrying  a link  [torch],  and  Will  leading  my 
wife.  So  home  and  to  prayers  and  to  bed.” 

Another  day,  having  been  to  court,  he  says  : 

‘ ‘ The  Queene,  a very  little  plain  old  woman,  and  nothing 
more  in  any  respect  than  any  ordinary  woman.  The  Prin- 
cess Henrietta  is  very  pretty,  but  much  below  my  expecta- 
tion ; and  her  dressing  of  herself  with  her  haire  frizzed 
short  up  to  her  eares  did  make  her  seem  so  much  the  less  to 
me.  But  my  wife,  standing  near  her,  with  two  or  three 
black  patches  on,  and  well  dressed,  did  seem  to  me  much 
handsomer  than  she.  Lady  Castelmaine  not  so  handsome 
as  once,  and  begins  to  decay  ; which  is  also  my  wife’s 
opinion.” 

One  more  little  extract  and  I have  done  : 

“ Lord's  Day^  May  26.  After  dinner  I,  by  water,  alone 
to  Westminster  to  the  Parish  Church,  by  which  I had  the 


204 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  &-  KINGS. 


great  pleasure  of  seeing  and  gazing  at  a great  many  very 
fine  women  ; and  what  with  that,  and  sleeping,  I passed 
away  the  time  till  sermon  was  done.” 

Was  there  ever  anything  more  ingenuous  than 
that?  How  delightfully  sure  we  are  that  such  writ- 
ing was  never  intended  for  publication  ! 

The  great  charm  of  Mr.  Pepys  and  all  such  diary 
writing  is,  that  it  gives  us,  by  a hundred  little  gossipy 
touches,  the  actual  complexion  of  the  times.  We 
have  no  conventional  speech  to  wrestle  with,  in 
order  to  get  at  its  meaning.  The  plain  white  lights 
of  honesty  and  common-sense  — so  much  better 
than  all  the  rhetorical  prismatic  hues  — put  the  ac- 
tual situation  before  us ; and  we  have  an  approach 
to  that  realism  which  the  highest  art  is  always 
struggling  to  reach.  The  courtiers  in  their  great, 
fresh-curled  wigs,  strut  and  ogle  and  prattle  before 
us.  We  scent  the  perfumed  locks  of  Peter  Lely’s 
ladies,  and  the  eels  frying  in  the  kitchen.  We  see 
Mr.  Samuel  Pepys  bowing  to  the  Princess  Henri- 
etta, and  know  we  shall  hear  of  it  if  he  makes  a 
misstep  in  backing  out  of  her  august  presence. 
How  he  gloats  over  that  new  plush,  or  moire>an- 
tique,  that  has  just  come  home  for  his  wife  — cost 


FEPYS^  DIARY. 


205 


four  guineas  — which  price  shocks  him  a little,  and 
sends  him  to  bed  vexed,  and  makes  him  think  he 
had  better  have  kept  by  the  old  woollen  stuff ; but, 
next  Lord’s  day  being  bright,  and  she  wearing  it 
to  St.  Margaret’s  or  St.  Giles’,  where  he  watches 
her  as  she  sits  under  the  dull  fire  of  the  sermon  — 
her  face  beaming  with  gratitude,  and  radiant  with 
red  ribbons  — he  relents,  and  softens,  and  is  proud 
and  glad,  and  goes  to  sleep  ! This  Pepys  stands  a 
good  chance  to  outlive  Butler,  and  to  outlive  Bur- 
net, and  to  outlive  Clarendon,  and  to  outlive  John 
Evelyn. 

I may  add  further  to  this  mention  of  the  old 
diarist,  that  at  a certain  period  of  his  life  he  became 
suspected  — and  without  reason  — of  complicity 
with  the  Popish  plots  (of  whose  intricacies  you  will 
get  curious  and  graphic  illustration  in  Peveril  of 
the  Peak) ; and  poor  Pepys  had  his  period  of  prison- 
ship  like  so  many  others  in  that  day.  He  also  be- 
came, at  a later  time,  singularly  enough,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Eoyal  Society  of  England — a.  Society 
formed  in  the  course  of  Charles  n.s’  reign,  and 
which  enrolled  such  men  as  Eobert  Boyle  and  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  in  its  early  days ; and  which  now 


2o6 


LANDSy  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


enrols  the  best  and  worthiest  of  England’s  scien- 
tists. 

I do  not  think  they  would  elect  such  a man  as 
Samuel  Pepys  for  President  now  ; yet  it  would  ap- 
pear that  the  old  gentleman  in  his  long  wig  and 
his  new  coat  made  a good  figure  in  the  chair,  and 
looked  wise,  and  used  to  have  the  members  down 
informally  at  his  rooms  in  York  Building,  where  he 
made  good  cheer  for  them,  and  broached  his  best 
bin  of  claret.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that 
Pepys  had  an  appreciative  ear  for  the  melodies  of 
Chaucer  (like  very  few  in  his  day),  and  spurred 
Dryden  to  the  making  of  some  of  his  best  imita- 
tions. 

When  he  died  — it  was  in  the  early  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century  — he  left  his  books,  manu- 
scripts, and  engravings,  which  were  valuable,  to 
Magdalen  College,  Cambridge ; and  there,  as  I said 
when  we  first  came  upon  his  name,  his  famous 
Diary,  in  short-hand,  lay  unheard  of  and  unriddled 
for  more  than  a hundred  years. 


ROBERT  BOYLE. 


207 


A Scientist. 

Science  was  making  a pusli  for  itself  in  these 
times.  Newton  had  discovered  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion before  Charles  11.  died  ; the  King  himself  was 
no  bad  dabbler  in  chemistry. 

Kobert  Boyle,  the  son  of  an  Earl,  and  with  all 
moneyed  appliances  to  help  him,  was  one  of  the  early 
promoters  and  founders  of  the  Eoyal  Society  I spoke 
of  ; a noticeable  man  every  way  in  that  epoch  of  the 
Ethereges  and  the  Buckinghams  and  the  Gwynnes 
— devoting  his  fortune  to  worthy  works  ; estimable 
in  private  life  ; dignified  and  serene ; tall  in  person 
and  spare  — wearing,  like  every  other  well-born  Lon- 
doner, the  curled,  long-bottomed  wig  of  Prance,  and 
making  sentences  in  exposition  of  his  thought  which 
were  longer  and  stiffer  than  his  wigs.  I give  you  a 
sample.  He  is  discussing  the  eye,  and  wants  to  say 
that  it  is  wonderfully  constructed ; and  this  is  the 
way  he  says  it : 

“To  be  told  that  an  eje  is  the  organ  of  sight,  and  that 
this  is  performed  by  that  faculty  of  the  mind  which,  from 
its  function,  is  called  visive,  will  give  a man  but  a sorry  ac* 


2c8 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


count  of  the  instruments  and  manner  of  vision  itself,  or  ol 
the  knowledge  of  that  Opificer  who,  as  the  Scripture  speaks, 
formed  the  eye ; and  he  that  can  take  up  with  this  easy 
theory  of  Vision,  will  not  think  it  necessary  to  take  the  pains 
to  dissect  the  eyes  of  animals,  nor  study  the  hooks  of  mathe- 
maticians to  understand  Vision  ; and  accordingly  will  have 
hut  mean  thoughts  of  the  contrivance  of  the  Organ,  and  the 
skill  of  the  Artificer,  in  comparison  of  the  ideas  that  will  he 
suggested  of  both  of  them  to  him,  that  being  profoundly 
skilled  in  anatomy  and  optics,  by  their  help  takes  asunder 
the  several  coats,  humors,  muscles,  of  which  that  exquisite 
dioptrical  instrument  consists  ; and  having  separately  con- 
sidered the  size,  figure,  consistence,  texture,  diaphaneity  or 
opacity,  situation,  and  connection  of  each  of  them,  and  their 
coaptation  in  the  whole  eye,  shall  discover,  by  the  help  of 
the  laws  of  optics,  how  admirably  this  little  organ  is  fitted  to 
receive  the  incident  beams  of  light  and  dispose  them  in  the 
best  manner  possible  for  completing  the  lively  representa- 
tion of  the  almost  infinitely  various  objects  of  sight.” 

What  do  you  think  of  that  for  a sentence?  If 
the  Fellows  of  the  Eoyal  Society  wrote  much  in 
that  way  (and  the  Honorable  Boyle  did  a good 
deal),  is  it  any  wonder  that  they  should  have  an 
exaggerated  respect  for  a man  who  could  express 
himself  in  the  short,  straight  fashion  in  which  Sam- 
uel Pepys  wrote  his  Diary  ? 


yOHN  BUNYAN. 


209 


John  Bunyan. 

I have  a new  personage  to  bring  before  you  out 
of  this  hurly-burly  of  the  Eestoration  days,  and 
what  I have  to  say  of  him  will  close  up  our  talk  for 
this  morning. 

I think  he  did  never  wear  a wig.  Buckingham, 
who  courted  almost  all  orders  of  men,  would  not 
have  honored  him  with  a nod  of  recognition  ; nor 
would  Bishop  Burnet.  I think  even  the  amiable  Dr. 
Tillotson,  or  the  very  liberal  Dr.  South,  would  have 
jostled  away  from  him  in  a crowd,  rather  than  to- 
ward him.  Yet  he  was  more  pious  than  they ; had 
more  humor  than  Buckingham ; and  for  imagina- 
tive power  would  outrank  every  man  living  in  that 
day,  unless  we  except  the  blind  old  poet  Milton. 
You  will  guess  easily  the  name  I have  in  mind  : it  is 
John  Bunyan.*  Not  a great  name  then  ; so  vulgar 
a one  indeed  that  — a good  many  years  later  — the 

* B.  1628  ; d.  1688.  Editions  of  tlie  Pilgrim's  Progress  are 
innumerable.  Southey  and  Macaulay  have  dealt  with  his 
biography,  and  in  later  times  Mr.  Fronde  (“  English  Men 
of  Letters  ”)  and  John  Brown  (Svo,  London,  1885). 

11.-14 


210 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


amiable  poet  Cowper  spoke  of  it  charily.  But  it 
is  known  now  and  honored  wherever  English  is 
spoken. 

He  was  born  at  Elstow,  a mile  away  from  Bed- 
ford, amid  fat  green  meadows,  beside  which  in  early 
May  long  lines  of  hawthorn  hedges  are  all  abloom. 
You  will  go  straight  through  that  pleasant  country 
in  passing  from  Liverpool  to  London,  if  you  take, 
as  I counsel  you  to  do,  the  Midland  Railway ; and 
you  will  see  the  lovely  rural  pictures  which  fell 
under  Bunyan’s  eye  as  he  strolled  along  beside  the 
hedge-rows,  from  Elstow  — a mile-long  road  — to 
the  grammar-school  at  Bedford. 

The  trees  are  beautiful  thereabout ; the  grass  is 
as  green  as  emerald ; old  cottages  are  mossy  and 
picturesque  ; gray  towers  of  churches  hang  out  a 
great  wealth  of  ivy  boughs ; sleek  Durham  cattle 
and  trim  sheep  feed  contentedly  on  the  Bedford 
meadows,  and  rooks,  cawing,  gather  into  flocks  and 
disperse,  and  glide  down  singly,  or  by  pairs,  into 
the  tops  of  trees  that  shade  country  houses. 

The  aspects  have  not  changed  much  in  all  these 
years  ; even  the  cottage  of  Bunyan’s  tinker  father  is 
still  there,  with  only  a new  front  upon  it.  The  boy 


JOHN  BUNYAN,  21 1 

received  but  little  schooling,  and  that  at  hap-haz- 
ard  ; but  he  got  much  religious  teaching  from  the 
elders  of  the  Baptist  chapel,  or  from  this  or  that  old 
Puritan  villager.  A stern  doctrinal  theology  over- 
shadowed all  his  boyish  years,  full  of  threatening, 
fiery  darts,  and  full  of  golden  streaks  of  promise. 

He  was  a badish  boy  — as  most  boys  are  ; a good- 
ly quantum  of  original  sin  in  him  ; he  says,  with  his 
tender  conscience,  that  he  was  “ very  bad  ; ” a child 
of  the  devil ; swearing,  sometimes  ; playing  three 
old  cat”  very  often;  picking  flowers,  I dare  say,  or 
idly  looking  at  the  rooks  of  a Sunday.  Yet  I would 
engage  that  the  Newhaven  High  School  would 
furnish  thirty  or  forty  as  bad  ones  as  John  Bunyan 
any  day  in  the  year.  But  he  makes  good  resolves ; 
breaks  them  again  ; finally  is  convicted,  but  falters ; 
marries  young  (and,  as  would  seem,  foolishly,  neither 
bride  nor  groom  being  turned  of  twenty),  and  she 
bringing  for  sole  dower  not  so  much  as  one  dish 
or  spoon,  but  only  two  good  books — The  Plain 
Man's  Pathway  to  Heaven  and  The  Practice  of  Piety, 

Even  before  this  he  had  been  drafted  for  service 
in  the  battles  which  were  aflame  in  England  — 
doubtless  fighting  for  the  Commonwealth,  as  most 


212 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


of  his  biographers  * allege.  Very  probably,  too,  he 
was  under  orders  of  that  Sir  Samuel  Luke,  who  lived 
near  by,  and  who  — as  I have  mentioned  — was  the 
butt  of  much  of  Samuel  Butler’s  Hudibrastic  satire. 

Next  we  hear  of  him  as  preacher — not  properly 
sanctioned  even  by  the  non-conforming  authorities 
— but  opening  that  intense  religious  talk  of  his 
upon  whatever  and  whomsoever  would  come  to 
hear.  Even  his  friendly  Baptist  brothers  look 
doubtfully  upon  his  irregularities  ; but  he  sees  only 
the  great  golden  cross  before  him  in  the  skies,  and 
hears  only  the  crackle  of  the  flames  in  the  nether- 
most depths  below.  He  is  bound  to  save,  in  what 
way  he  can,  those  who  will  be  saved,  and  to  warn, 
in  fearfullest  way,  those  who  will  be  damned. 

Hundreds  came  to  hear  this  working-man  who 
was  so  dreadfully  in  earnest,  and  who  had  no  more 
respect  for  pulpits  or  liturgies  than  for  preaching- 

* Mr.  Froude  (“  English  Men  of  Letters  ”)  entertains  an 
opposite  opinion  — as  do  Offor  (1862)  and  Copner  (1883). 
Mr.  Brown,  however,  who  is  conscientious  to  a fault,  and 
seems  to  have  been  indefatigable  in  his  research,  confirms 
the  general  opinion  entertained  by  most  accredited  biog* 
raphers.  See  John  Bxinyan ; hia  Life,  Times,  and  Work, 
by  John  Brown,  chap.  iii. , p.  45. 


JOHN  BUNYAN 


213 


places  in  the  woods.  It  was  not  strange  that  he  of- 
fended against  non-conformist  acts,  nor  strange 
that,  after  accession  of  Charles  II.  he  came  to  im- 
prisonment for  his  illegal  pieties.  This  prison-life 
lasted  for  some  twelve  years,  in  the  which  he  still 
preached  to  those  who  would  listen  within  prison 
walls,  and  read  his  Bible,  and  wrought  at  tagged 
laces  (still  a great  industry  of  that  district)  for  the 
support  of  his  family,  a separation  from  whom  — 
most  of  all  from  his  poor  blind  daughter  Mary  — 
was,  he  says,  like  ‘‘pulling  the  flesh  from  his 
bones.”  Over  and  over  in  that  reach  of  prison-life 
he  might  have  been  free  if  he  would  have  promised 
to  abstain  from  his  irregular  preachments,  or  if  he 
would  go  over  seas  to  America.  But  he  would  not ; 
he  could  not  forbear  to  warn  'whomsoever  might 
hear,  of  the  fiery  pit,  and  of  the  days  when  the 
heavens  should  be  opened.  He  loved  not  the 
thought  of  over-ocean  crossing  ; his  duties  lay  near ; 
and  with  aU  his  radicalism  he  never  outlived  a gra- 
cious liking  for  British  kingly  traditions,  and  for 
such  ranking  of  men  and  powers  as  belonged  to 
Levitical  story. 

Finally,  under  Charles’  Declaration  of  Indulgence 


214 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


(1672),  which  was  intended  more  for  the  benefit  of 
ill-used  Eomanists  than  for  Non-conformists,  Bun- 
yan^S  prison-doors  were  laid  open,  and  he  went  to 
hia  old  work  of  preaching  in  public  places.  There 
may  have  been,  as  his  more  recent  biographers 
intimate,  a later  (1675)  short  imprisonment ; * and 
this,  or  some  portion  of  the  previous  prison-life,  was 
certainly  passed  in  that  ancient  Bedford  jail,  which, 
only  a few  years  since,  was  standing  on  Bedford 
bridge,  hanging  over  the  waters  of  the  river  Ouse 
— whose  slow  current  we  shall  find  flowing  again  in 
our  story  of  William  Cowper. 

And  if  the  whole  weight  of  tradition  is  not  to  be 
distrusted,  it  was  in  this  little  prison  over  the 
river,  where  passers-by  might  shout  a greeting 
to  him  — that  John  Bunyan  fell  into  the  dreamy 


* Reference  is  again  made  to  Life,  Etc.,  by  Jobn  Brown, 
Minister  of  the  Church  at  Bunyan  Meeting,  Bedford.  The 
old  popular  belief  was  strong  that  Bunyan’s  entire  prison- 
ship  was  served  in  the  jail  of  the  bridge.  Well-authenti- 
cated accounts,  however,  of  the  number  of  his  fellow-prison- 
ers forbid  acceptance  of  this  belief. 

Froude  alludes  to  the  question  without  settling  it ; Mr. 
Brown  ingeniously  sets  forth  a theory  that  explains  the  tra- 
ditions, and  seems  to  meet  all  the  facts  of  the  case. 


JOHN  BUNYAN.  215 

fashioning  of  that  book  which  has  made  his  name 
known  everywhere,  and  which  has  as  fixed  a place 
in  the  great  body  of  English  literature  as  Shake- 
speare’s “Hamlet,”  or  Spenser’s  Faery  Queen  — I 
mean  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 

But  how  is  it,  the  reader  may  ask,  that  this 
tinker’s  son,  who  had  so  far  forgotten  his  school 
learning  that  his  wife  had  to  teach  him  over  again 
to  read  and  write  — how  is  it  that  he  makes  a 
book  which  takes  hold  on  the  sympathies  of  all 
Christendom,  and  has  a literary  quality  that  ranks 
it  with  the  first  of  allegories  ? * 

Mr.  Pepys  told  plainly  what  we  wanted  him  to 


* There  was  a quasi  charge  of  plagiarism  against  Bunjan 
at  one  time  current,  and  particulars  respecting  it  came  to 
the  light  some  sixty  years  ago  in  a correspondence  of  Robert 
Southey  (who  edited  the  Major  edition  of  PilgrirrCs  Progress) 
with  George  Off  or,  Esq.,  which  appears  in  the  Peminis^ 
cences  of  Joseph  Cottle  of  Bristol.  The  allegation  was, 
that  Bunyan  had  taken  hints  for  his  allegory  from  an  old 
Butch  book,  Duyfkens  ande  Willemynlcyns  Pilgrimagee 
(with  five  cuts  by  Bolswert),  published  at  Antwerp  in  the 
year  1627.  Br.  Southey  dismissed  the  allegation  with  dis- 
dain, after  examination  of  the  Dutch  Pilgrimage;  nor  do 
recent  editors  appear  to  have  counted  the  charge  worthy  of 
refutation. 


2i6 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


tell ; but  he  had  nothing  but  those  trifles  which 
give  a color  to  every-day  life  to  tell  of.  If  he  had 
undertaken  to  make  a story  of  a page  long,  involv- 
ing imaginative  powers,  he  would  have  made  a 
failure  of  it ; and  if  he  had  tried  to  be  eloquent  he 
would  have  given  himself  away  deplorably.  But 
this  poor  hrazier  (as  he  calls  himself  in  his  last 
will),  with  not  one-fourth  of  his  knowledge  of 
the  world,  with  not  one-twentieth  of  his  learning 
(bald  as  the  old  diarist  was  in  this  line),  with 
not  one-hundredth  part  of  his  self-confidence,  makes 
this  wonderful  and  charming  book  of  which  we  are 
talking.  How  was  it  ? 

Well,  there  was,  first,  the  great  compelling  and 
informing  Christian  purpose  in  him  : he  was  of  the 
Bible  all  compact ; every  utterance  of  it  was  a vital 
truth  to  him  ; the  fire  and  the  brimstone  were  real ; 
the  Almighty  fatherhood  was  real ; the  cross  and 
the  passion  were  real ; the  teeming  thousands  were 
real,  who  hustled  him  on  either  side  and  who 
were  pressing  on,  rank  by  rank,  in  the  broad  road 
that  leads  to  the  City  of  Destruction.  The  man 
vAo  believes  such  things  in  the  way  in  which 
John  Bunyan  believed  iliem  has  a tremendous 


PILGRIMS  PROGRESS. 


217 


motive  power,  which  will  make  itself  felt  in  some 
shape. 

Then  that  limited  schooling  of  his  had  kept 
him  to  a short  vocabulary  of  the  sharpest  and 
keenest  and  most  telling  words.  Ehetoric  did 
not  lead  him  astray  after  flowers  ; learning  did 
not  tempt  him  into  far-fetched  allusions ; literary 
habit  had  not  spoiled  his  simplicities.  And  again, 
and  chiefest  of  all,  there  was  a great  imagina- 
tive power,  coming  — not  from  schools,  nor  from 
grammar  teachings  — but  coming  as  June  days 
come,  and  which,  breathing  over  his  pages  with  an 
almost  divine  afflatus,  lifted  their  sayings  into  the 
regions  of  Poetry. 

Therefore  and  thereby  it  is  that  he  has  fused 
his  thought  into  such  shape  as  takes  hold  on 
human  sympathies  everywhere,  and  his  characters 
are  all  live  creatures.  All  these  two  hundred  and 
twenty  years  last  past  the  noble  Great-heart  has 
been  thwacking  away  at  Giant  Grim  and  thun- 
dering on  the  walls  of  Doubting  Castle  with  blows 
we  hear;  and  poor,  timid  Christian  has  been  just 
as  many  years,  in  the  sight  of  all  of  us,  making 
his  way  through  pitfalls  and  quagmires  and  Van- 


2I8 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


ity  Fairs  — hard  pressed  by  Apollyon,  and  be- 
labored by  Giant  Despair — on  his  steady  march 
toward  the.  Delectable  Mountains  and  the  river 
of  Death,  and  the  shining  shores  which  lie  Be- 
yond. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 


There  were  some  unsavory  names  whicli  crept 
into  the  opening  of  our  last  chapter ; but 
they  were  sweet  in  the  nostrils  of  Charles  H.  Of 
such  were  Buckingham,  Rochester,  Etherege,  Dor- 
set, and  the  Castelmaine.  And  we  made  a little 
moral  counterpoise  by  the  naming  of  Baxter’s 
Saints'  Rest,  and  of  Tillotson,  and  of  the  health- 
ful, noble  verse  of  Andrew  Marvell,  by  which  we 
wished  to  impress  upon  our  readers  the  fact  that  the 
whole  world  of  England  in  that  day  was  not  given 
over  to  French  court- dances  and  to  foul-mouthed 
poets  ; but  that  the  Puritan  leaven  was  still  work- 
ing, even  in  literary  ways,  and  that  there  were  men 
of  dignity,  knowledge,  culture,  and  rank,  who  never 
bowed  down  to  such  as  the  pretty  Duchess  of 
Portsmouth. 

We  had  our  glimpse  of  that  witty  buffoon  Sam- 


220 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


ael  Butler,  who  made  clever  antics  in  rhyme  ; and  I 
think,  we  listened  with  a curious  eagerness  to  what 
Samuel  Pepys  had  to  say  of  his  play-going,  and  of 
die  black  patches  with  which  his  pretty  wdfe  set 
forth  her  beauty.  Then  came  Bunyan,  with  his 
great  sermonizing  m barns  and  woods,  and  that  far 
finer  sermonizing  which  in  the  days  of  his  jailhood 
took  shape  in  the  immortal  story  of  Christian  and 
Great-heart.  He  died  over  a grocer’s  shop,  in 
Snow  Hill,  London  (its  site  now  all  effaced  by  the 
great  Holborn  Viaduct),  whither  he  had  gone  on 
a preaching  bout  in  the  year  1688,  only  a few 
months  before  James  H.  was  driven  from  his 
throne.  It  is  worth  going  out  by  the  City  Eoad  — 
only  a short  walk  from  Finsbury  Square  — to  the 
cemetery  of  Bunhill  Fields,  where  Bunyan  was 
buried  — to  see  the  marble  figure  of  the  tinker 
preacher  stretched  upon  the  monument  modern 
admirers  have  built,  and  to  see  Christian  toiling 
below,  with  his  burden  strapped  to  his  back. 


THOMAS  FULLER. 


221 


Three  Good  Prosers. 

In  the  course  of  that  old  Pepys'  Diary  — out  of 
which  we  had  our  regalement  — there  is  several 
times  mention  of  Thomas  Fuller ; * among  others 
this  : 

“I  sat  down  reading  in  Fuller’s  English  Worthies;  be- 
ing mucli  troubled  that  (though  he  had  some  discourse  with 
me  about  my  family  and  armes)  he  says  nothing  at  all.  But 
I believe,  indeed,  our  family  were  never  considerable.” 

Honest  Pepys ! Shrewd  Dr.  Fuller,  and  a man 
not  to  be  forgotten  ! He  was  a ‘‘  Cavalier  parson  ” 
through  the  Civil- War  days ; was  bom  down  in 
Northamptonshire  in  the  same  town  where  John 
Dryden,  twenty  - three  years  later,  first  saw  the 
light.  He  was  full  of  wit,  and  full  of  knowledges  ; 
people  called  him  — as  so  many  have  been  and  are 
called  — ‘‘a  walking  library  ; ” and  his  stout  figure 
was  to  be  seen  many  a time,  in  the  Commonwealth 
days,  striding  through  Fleet  Street,  and  by  Paul’s 

♦Thomas  Fuller,  b.  1608;  d.  1661.  The  Woi'thies  of  Eng- 
land is  his  best-known  book  — a reservoir  of  anecdote  and 
witty  comments  upon  “men  and  manners.” 


222 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Walk,  to  Cheapside.  There  is  quaint  humor  in  his 
books,  and  quaintness  and  aptness  of  language. 
Coleridge  says  he  was  ‘‘  the  most  sensible  and  least 
prejudiced  great  man  of  his  time.” 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,*  a doctor,  and  the  author  of 
the  Eeligio  Medici  and  Urn-Burial,  was  another  de- 
lightful author  of  the  Civil- War  times,  whose  life 
reached  almost  through  the  reign  of  Charles  11.  ; 
yet  he  was  not  a war  man  — in  matter  of  kings  or 
of  churches.  Serenities  hung  over  him  in  all  those 
times  wherein  cannon  thundered,  and  traitors  (so 
called)  were  quartered,  and  cathedrals  despoiled. 
He  loved  not  great  cities.  London  never  magne- 
tized him  ; but  after  his  thorough  continental  travel 
and  his  doctorate  at  Leyden,  he  planted  himself  in 
that  old,  crooked-streeted  city  of  Norwich,  in  Nor- 
folk ; and  there,  under  the  shadow  of  the  stupen- 
dous mound  and  Keep  (which  date  from  the  early 

* Thomas  Browne,  b.  1605  ; d.  1682.  Full  collection  of 
his  works  (with  Johnson’s  Bohn,  1851.  A very  charm- 
ing edition  of  the  Eeligio  Medici — so  good  in  print — so  full 
in  notes — so  convenient  to  the  hand — is  that  of  the  “ Golden 
Treasury  Series,”  Macmillan.  Nor  can  I forbear  reference 
to  that  keen,  sympathetic  essay  on  this  writer  which  appears 
in  Walter  Pater’s  Appreciations^  Macmillan,  1889. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE, 


223 


Henrys)  he  built  up  a home,  of  which  he  made  a 
museum  — served  the  sick  — reared  a family  of  ten 
children,  and  followed  those  meditative  ways  of 
thought  which  led  him  through  sepulchral  urns, 
and  the  miracles  of  growth,  and  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
away  from  all  the  ‘‘  decrees  of  councils  and  the 
niceties  of  the  schools  ” to  the  altitudes  he  reaches 
in  the  Religio  Medici, 

I must  excerpt  something  to  show  the  humors  of 
this  Norwich  doctor,  and  it  shall  be  this  : 

‘ ‘ Light  that  makes  things  seen  makes  some  things  invis- 
ible. Were  it  not  for  darkness,  and  the  shadow  of  the 
earth,  the  noblest  part  of  Creation  had  remained  unseen, 
and  the  stars  in  Heaven  as  invisible  as  on  the  Fourth  day 
when  they  were  created  above  the  horizon  with  the  Sun, 
and  there  was  not  an  eye  to  behold  them.  The  greatest 
mystery  of  Religion  is  expressed  by  adumbration,  and  in  the 
noblest  part  of  Jewish  types  we  find  the  Cherubim  shadow- 
ing the  Mercy  Seat.  Life  itself  is  but  the  Shadow  of  Death, 
and  souls  departed  but  the  Shadows  of  the  Living.  The 
sun  itself  is  but  the  dark  Simulacrum^  and  light  but  the 
shadow  of  God.” 

If  there  were  no  other  reason  for  our  love  of  the 
best  writings  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  it  would  be 
for  this  — that  in  some  scarce  distinguishable  way 
he  has  inoculated  our  ‘‘  Elia  ’’  of  a later  day  with 


224 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


something  very  like  his  own  quaint  egoisms  and 
as  quaint  garniture  of  speech.  How  Charles  Lamb 
must  have  enjoyed  him,  and  joyed  in  the  medita- 
tion — of  a twilight  — on  the  far-reaching,  mystic 
skeins  of  thought  which  so  keen  a reader  would 
ravel  out  from  the  stores  of  the  Urn-Burial  ! And 
with  what  delighted  sanction  the  later  writer  per- 
mits, here  and  there,  the  tender  solemnities  of  the 
elder  to  shine  through  and  qualify  his  own  pe- 
riods ; not  through  imitativeness,  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, but  because  the  juices  from  the  mellow 
fruitage  of  the  old  physician  have  been  quietly  as- 
similated by  the  stuttering  clerk  of  the  India 
House,  and  so  his  thought  burgeons  — by  very  ne- 
cessity — into  that  kindred  leafage  of  phrase  which 
lifts  and  sways  in  the  gentle  breezes  of  his  always 
gentle  purpose. 

Another  name,  of  a man  far  less  lovable,  but  per- 
haps more  widely  known,  is  that  of  Sir  William 
Temple.*  He  was  of  excellent  family,  born  in  Lon- 

* William  Temple,  b.  1628  ; d.  1G99.  His  works,  mainly 
political  writings,  were  pnblisbed  in  two  volumes  folio, 
1720  ; a later  edition,  1731,  including  the  Letters  of  Temple 
(edited,  and  as  title-page  sa,ys  — published  by  Jonathan 
Swift),  was  dedicated  to  his  Majesty  William  III. 


SIR  WILLIAM  TEMPLE. 


225 


don,  highly  cultivated,  and  lived  all  through  the 
reign  of  Charles  IL,  and  much  beyond.  He  repre- 
sented England,  in  diplomatic  ways,  often  upon 
the  Continent,  and  with  great  success  ; he  negoti- 
ated the  so-called  Triple  Alliance ; he  also  brought 
about  that  royal  marriage  of  the  daughter  of  the 
Duke  of  York  (afterward  James  IL),  with  William  of 
Orange,  and  so  gave  to  England  that  royal  couple, 
William  and  Mary.  He  had  great  dignity  ; he  had 
wealth  ; a sort  of  earlier  Edward  Everett  — as  pol- 
ished and  cold  and  well-meaning  and  fastidious  ; 
looking  rather  more  to  the  elegance  of  his  speech 
than  to  the  burden  of  it ; always  making  show  of 
Classicism  — nothing  if  not  correct  ; cautious  ; 
keeping  well  out  of  harm’s  way,  and  all  pugna- 
cious expressions  of  opinion  ; courteous  to  strong 
Churchmen ; courteous  to  Papists  ; bowing  low  to 
my  Lady  Castelmaine ; very  considerate  of  Crom- 
wellians  who  had  power  ; moulding  his  habit  and 
speech  so  as  to  show  no  ugly  angles  of  opinion 
anywhere,  but  only  such  convenient  roundness  as 
would  roll  along  life’s  level  easily  to  the  very  end. 
You  will  not  be  in  the  way  of  encountering  much 

that  he  wrote,  though  he  had  the  reputation  in 
II. -15 


226 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  5-  KINGS. 


those  days,  and  long  after,  of  writing  excellently 
well.  ‘‘He  was  the  first  writer,”  said  Johnson, 
“ who  gave  cadence  to  English  prose.” 

Among  his  essays  is  one  on  “ Ancient  and  Mod- 
ern Learning,”  showing  the  pretensions  of  a scho- 
lastic man,  whose  assumptions  brought  about  a 
controversy  into  which  Eichard  Bentley,  a rare 
young  critic,  entered,  and  out  of  which  grew  event- 
ually Swift’s  famous  Battle  of  the  Books. 

Temple  also  wrote  on  gardens,  with  a safer  swing 
for  his  learning  and  his  taste  ; traces  of  what  his 
taste  was  in  such  matters  are  still  discernible  about 
his  old  home  of  Moor  Park,  in  Surrey.  It  lies  some 
forty  miles  from  London,  on  the  way  to  Southamp- 
ton and  the  Isle  of  Wight,  near  the  old  town  of 
Earnham,  where  there  is  a venerable  bishop’s  palace 
worth  the  seeing  ; a mile  away  one  may  find  the 
terraces  of  Sir  William’s  old  garden,  and  the  mossy 
dial  under  which  he  ordered  his  heart  to  be  buried. 
Another  interest,  moreover,  attaches  to  these  Moor 
Park  gardens,  which  will  make  them  doubly  worth 
a visit.  On  their  terraces  and  under  their  trees 
used  to  pace  and  meditate  that  strange  creature 
Jonathan  Swift,  who  was  in  his  young  days  a pro- 


JOHN  DRYDEN  227 

iege  or  secretary  of  Sir  William  Temple  ; and  there, 
too,  in  the  same  shade,  and  along  the  same  terraces, 
used  to  stroll  and  meditate  in  different  mood,  poor 
Mistress  Hester  Johnson,  the  ‘‘Stella”  of  Swift’s 
life-long  love-dream. 

We  shall  meet  these  people  again.  But  I leave 
Sir  William  Temple,  commending  to  your  atten- 
tion a delightful  little  essay  of  Charles  Lamb,  in 
his  volume  of  Elia,  upon  “The  Genteel  Style  in 
Writing.”  It  gives  a fair  though  flattering  notion 
of  the  ways  of  Sir  William’s  life,  and  of  the  way  of 
his  work. 


Johi  Dry  den. 

Of  course  we  know  John  Dryden’s  name  a great 
deal  better  than  we  know  Sir  William  Temple’s  ; 
better,  perhaps,  than  we  know  any  other  name  of 
that  period.  And  yet  do  we  know  his  poems 
well?  Are  there  any  that  you  specially  cherish 
and  doat  upon?  any  that  kindle  your  sympathies 
easily  into  blaze  ? any  that  give  electric  expression 
to  your  own  poetic  yearnings,  and  put  you  upon 
quick  and  enchanting  drift  into  that  empyrean  of 
song  whereto  the  great  poets  decoy  us?  I doubt  if 


228 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


there  is  much  of  Drjden  which  has  this  subtle  in- 
fluence upon  you  ; certainly  it  has  not  upon  me. 

There  are  the  great  Cecilia  odes,  which  hold  their 
places  in  the  reading-books,  with  their 

“ Double — double — double  beat 
Of  the  thundering  drum  ; ” 

and  the  royal 

“ Philip’s  warlike  son, 

Aloft  in  awful  state  ; 

The  lovely  Thais  by  his  side, 

— Like  a blooming  Eastern  bride 
In  flower  of  youth  and  beauty’s  pride  ; ” 

all  which  we  read  over  and  over,  always  with  an 
ambitious  vocalism  which  the  language  invites,  but, 
I think,  with  not  much  hearty  unction. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  little  that  we  recall 
of  this  man’s  work,  he  did  write  an  enormous 
amount  of  verse,  in  all  metres,  and  of  all  lengths. 
All  the  poems  that  Milton  ever  published  would 
hardly  fill  the  space  necessary  for  a full  synopsis  of 
what  John  Dryden  wrote.  But  let  us  begin  at  the 
beginning. 

This  poet,  and  important  man  of  letters,  was  bom 
only  a year  or  two  later  than  John  Biiuyan,  and  in 


JOHN  DRVDEN.  229 

the  same  range  of  country  — a little  to  the  north- 
ward, in  an  old  rectory  of  Aldwinckle  (Northamp- 
tonshire), upon  the  banks  of  the  river  Nen.  And 
this  river  flows  thence  northerly,  in  great  loops, 
where  sedges  grow,  past  the  tall  spire  of  Oundle  — 
past  the  grassy  ruins  of  Fotheringay  ; and  thence 
easterly,  in  other  great  loops,  through  flat  lands,  un- 
der the  huge  towers  of  Peterborough  Cathedral. 
But  the  river  singing  among  the  sedges  does  not 
come  into  Dryden’s  verse ; nor  does  Fotheringay, 
with  its  tragic  memories ; nor  do  the  noble  woods  of 
Lilford  Park,  or  of  that  Eockingham  Forest  which, 
in  the  days  of  Dryden’s  boyhood,  must  in  many 
places  have  brought  its  spurs  of  oak  timber  and  its 
haunts  of  the  red-deer  close  down  to  the  Nen  banks. 
Indeed,  Wordsworth  says,  with  a little  exaggeration, 
it  is  true,  ‘‘there  is  not  a single  image  from  nature 
in  the  whole  body  of  his  [Dryden’s]  works.” 

He  was  a well-born  boy,  with  titled  kinsfolk,  and 
had  money  at  command  for  good  courses  in  books. 
He  was  at  Westminster  School  under  Dr.  Busby ; 
was  at  Cambridge,  where  he  fell  one  time  into  diffi- 
culties, which  somehow  angered  him  in  a way  that 
made  him  somewhat  irreverent  of  his  old  college  in 


230 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


after  life.  There  are  pretty  traditions  that  in  ex- 
treme youth  he  addressed  some  very  earnest  ama- 
tory verses  to  a certain  Helen  Driden,  daughter  of 
his  baronet  uncle  at  Canons- Ashby  ; ^ and  there  are 
hints  dropped  by  some  biographers  of  a rebuff  to 
him  ; which,  if  it  came  about,  did  not  pluck  away 
the  cheerfulness  and  self-approval  that  lay  in  him. 
It  was  in  London,  however,  where  he  went  after 
his  father’s  death,  and  when  he  was  twenty-seven, 
that  the  first  verse  was  written  by  him  which  made 
the  literary  world  prick  up  its  ears  at  sound  of  a 
new  voice. 

’Tis  in  eulogy  of  Cromwell,  dying  just  then,  and 
this  is  a bit  of  it : 

**  Swift  and  resistless  thro’  the  land  he  past, 

Like  that  bold  Greek,  who  did  the  East  subdue, 

And  made  to  battles  such  heroic  haste, 

As  if  on  wings  of  Victory  he  flew. 

“ He  fought,  secure  of  fortune  as  of  fame : 

Still  by  new  maps  the  island  might  be  shown. 

Of  conquests,  which  he  strew’d  where-e’er  he  came. 
Thick  as  the  galaxy  with  stars  is  strown. 


* This  old  country  home,  very  charming  with  its  antique 
air,  its  mossy  terraces,  its  giant  cedars,  is  still  held  by  a Sir 
Henry  Dryden. 


JOHN  DRYDEN 


231 


“ His  ashes  in  a peaceful  urn  shall  rest, 

His  name,  a great  example  stands,  to  show 
How  strangely  high  endeavors  may  be  blest, 

Where  piety  and  valor  jointly  go.” 

A short  two  years  after,  you  will  remember,  and 
Charles  11.  came  to  his  own  and  was  crowned  ; and 
how  does  this  eulogist  of  Cromwell  treat  his  corona- 
tion ? In  a way  that  is  worth  our  listening  to  ; for, 
I think,  a comparison  of  the  Cromwellian  verses 
with  the  Carolan  eulogy  gives  us  a key  to  John  Dry- 
den’s  character : 

“ All  eyes  you  draw,  and  with  the  eyes,  the  heart: 

Of  your  own  pomp  yourself  the  greatest  part : 

Next  to  th"  sacred  temple  you  are  led. 

Where  waits  a crown  for  your  more  sacred  head : 

The  grateful  choir  their  harmony  employ, 

Not  to  make  greater,  but  more  solemn  joy. 

Wrapt  soft  and  warm  your  name  is  sent  on  high, 

As  flames  do  on  the  waves  of  incense  fly : 

Music  herself  is  lost,  in  vain  she  brings 
Her  choicest  notes  to  praise  the  best  of  kings  ; 

Her  melting  strains  in  you  a tomb  have  found. 

And  lie  like  bees  in  their  own  sweetness  drown'd.” 

No  wonder  that  he  came  ultimately  to  have  the 
place  of  Poet-laureate,  and  thereafter  an  extra  £100 
a year  with  it ! No  wonder  that,  with  all  his  clever- 


232 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


ness — and  it  was  prodigious — he  never  did,  and 
never  could,  win  an  unsullied  reputation  for  ster- 
ling integrity  and  straightforward  purpose. 

I know  that  his  latest  biographer  and  advocate, 
Mr.  Saintsbury,  whose  work  you  will  be  very  apt  to 
encounter  in  the  little  series  edited  by  John  Morley, 
sees  poems  like  those  I have  cited  with  other  eyes, 
and  fashions  out  of  them  an  agreeable  poetic  con- 
sistency very  honorable  to  Dryden ; but  I cannot 
twist  myself  so  as  to  view  the  matter  in  his  way.  I 
think  rather  of  a conscienceless  thrifty  newspaper, 
setting  forth  the  average  everyday  drift  of  opinion, 
with  a good  deal  more  than  everyday  skill. 

Meantime  John  Dryden  has  married,  and  has 
married  the  daughter  of  an  earl ; of  just  how  this 
came  about  we  have  not  very  full  record  ; but  there 
were  a great  many  who  wondered  why  she  should 
marry  him  ; and  a good  many  more,  as  it  appeared, 
who  persisted  in  wondering  why  he  should  marry 
her.  Such  wonderments  of  wondering  people  over- 
take a good  many  matches.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
it  was  not  a marriage  which  went  to  make  a domes- 
tic man  of  him  ; and  I think  you  will  search  vainly 
through  his  poems  for  any  indication  of  those  home 


JOHN  DRYDEN  233 

instincts  which,  like  the  melting  strains  ” he  flung 
about  King  Charles, 

“ Lie  like  bees  in  tbeir  own  sweetness  drown’d.” 

The  only  positive  worldly  good  which  seemed  to 
come  of  this  marriage  was  an  occasional  home  at 
Charlton,  in  Wiltshire  — an  estate  of  the  Earl  of 
Berkshire,  his  father-in-law — where  Dryden  wrote, 
shortly  after  his  marriage,  his  Annus  Mirabilis, 
in  which  he  gave  to  all  the  notable  events  of  the 
year  1666  a fillip  with  his  pen  ; and  the  odd  con- 
ceits that  lie  in  a single  one  of  his  stanzas  keep 
yet  alive  a story  of  the  capture  by  the  British  of  a 
fleet  of  Dutch  India  ships  : — 

“ Amidst  whole  heaps  of  spices  lights  a ball, 

And  now  their  odors  armed  against  them  fly  ; 

Some  preciously  by  shattered  porcelain  fall, 

And  some  by  aromatic  splinters  die.” 

There  are  three  hundred  other  stanzas  in  the 
poem,  of  the  same  make  and  rhythm,  telling  of  fire, 
of  plague,  and  of  battles.  I am  not  sure  if  anybody 
reads  it  nowadays ; but  if  you  do  — and  it  is  not 
fatiguing  — you  will  find  wonderful  word-craft  in  it, 
which  repeats  the  din  and  crash  of  battle,  and 


234 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


paints  the  smouldering  rage  and  the  blazing  power 
of  the  Great  Fire  of  London  in  a way  which  certain 
boys,  I well  remember  in  old  school  days,  thought 
represented  the  grand  climacteric  of  poetic  diction. 

The  London  of  Dryden. 

But  let  us  not  forget  where  we  are  in  our  English 
story ; it  is  London  that  has  been  all  aflame  in  that 
dreadful  year  of  1666.  Thirteen  thousand  houses 
have  been  destroyed,  eighty  odd  churches,  and 
some  four  hundred  acres  of  ground  in  the  central 
part  of  the  city  have  been  burned  over.  The  fire 
had  followed  swiftly  upon  the  devastating  plague  of 
the  previous  year,  which  Dryden  had  gone  into 
Wiltshire  to  avoid.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  if  he 
came  back  soon  enough  to  see  the  great  blaze  with 
his  own  eyes  ; ‘‘  chemical  fire,”  the  poet  calls  it,  and 
it  licked  up  the  poison  of  the  plague ; but  it  did  not 
lick  up  the  leprosy  of  Charles’  court.  There  was  a 
demand  for  plays,  and  for  plays  of  a bad  sort ; and 
Dryden  met  the  demand.  Never  was  there  an  au- 
thor more  apt  to  divine  what  the  public  did  want^ 
and  more  full  of  literary  contrivances  to  meet  it. 


GROWTH  OF  LONDON. 


235 


Dryden  knew  all  the  purveyors  of  this  sort  of  intel- 
lectual repast,  and  all  their  methods,  and  soon  be- 
came a king  among  them  ; and  to  be  a king  among 
the  playwrights  was  to  have  a very  large  sovereignty 
in  that  time.  Everybody  talked  of  the  plays ; all 
of  Eoyalist  faith  went  to  the  plays,  if  they  had 
money  ; and  money  was  becoming  more  and  more 
plentiful.  There  had  been  the  set-back,  it  is  true, 
of  the  Great  Fire  ; but  English  commerce  was  mak- 
ing enormous  strides  in  these  days.  There  was  a 
pathetic  folding  of  the  hands  and  dreary  forecast- 
ings directly  after  the  disaster,  as  after  all  such 
calamities.  But  straight  upon  this  the  city  grew, 
with  wider  streets  and  taller  houses,  and  in  only  a 
very  few  years  the  waste  ground  was  covered  again, 
and  the  new  temple  of  St.  Paul’s  rising,  under  the 
guidance  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  into  those  grand 
proportions  of  cupola  and  dome,  which,  in  their 
smoked  and  sooty  majesty,  dominate  the  city  of 
London  to-day. 

Houses  of  nobles  and  of  rich  merchants  which 
stood  near  to  Cornhill  and  Lombard  Street,  and 
private  gardens  which  had  occupied  areas  there- 
about— now  representing  millions  of  pounds  in 


236  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


value  — were  crowded  away  westward  by  the  new 
demands  of  commerce.  In  Dryden’s  day  there 
were  ducal  houses  looking  upon  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields  ; and  others,  with  pleasure  grounds  about 
them,  close  upon  Covent  Garden  Square.  Ameri- 
cans go  to  that  neighborhood  now,  in  early  morn- 
ing, to  catch  sight  of  the  immense  stores  of  fruit 
and  vegetables  which  are  on  show  there  upon 
market-days  ; and  they  are  well  repaid  for  such 
visit;  yet  the  houses  are  dingy,  and  a welter  of 
straw  and  mud  and  market  debris  stretches  to  the 
doors  ; but  the  stranger,  picking  his  way  through 
this,  and  through  Kussell  Street  to  the  corner  of 
Bow  Street,  will  find,  close  by,  the  site  of  that 
famous  Will’s  Coffee-house,  where  Dryden  lorded  it 
so  many  years,  and  whose  figure  there — in  the 
chimney-corner,  with  his  pipe,  laying  down  the  law 
between  the  whiffs,  and  conferring  honors  by  offer- 
ing a pinch  from  his  snuff-box  — Scott  has  made 
familiar  to  the  whole  world. 

It  was  an  earlier  sort  of  club-house,  where  the 
news  in  the  Gazette  was  talked  of,  and  the  last  battle 
— if  there  were  a recent  one  — and  the  last  play, 
and  the  last  scandal  of  the  court.  Its  discussions 


WILLIS  COFFEE-HOUSE. 


^37 


and  potations  made  away  with  a good  many  nights, 
and  a good  many  pipes  and  bottles,  and  was  not 
largely  provocative  of  domesticity.  But  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  Lady  Elizabeth  — Dryden's  wife  — 
ever  made  remonstrances  on  this  score ; indeed,  Mr. 
Green,  the  historian,  would  intimate  that  my  lady 
had  distractions  of  her  own,  not  altogether  wise  or 
worthy  ; but  we  prefer  to  believe  the  best  we  can  of 
her. 

To  this  gathering-place  at  Covent  Garden  Ether- 
ege  and  Wycherley  found  their  way  — all  writing 
men,  in  fact ; even  the  great  Buckingham  perhaps 
— before  his  quarrel;  and  Dorset,  fellow-member 
with  Dryden,  of  the  Koyal  Society  ; maybe  But- 
ler too,  when  he  found  himself  in  London  ; and 
poor  Otway, ^ hoping  to  meet  some  one  generous 
enough  to  pay  his  score  for  him  ; and  the  young 
Congreve,  proud  in  his  earlier  days  to  get  a nod 

* Otway,  b.  1631  ; d.  1685,  son  of  a Sussex  clergyman, 
was  author  of  many  poor  plays,  and  of  two  — ‘‘The  Or- 
phan” and  “Venice  Preserved” — sure  to  live.  With 
much  native  refinement  and  extraordinary  pathetic  power, 
he  went  to  the  had  ; was  crazed  by  hopeless  love  for  an 
actress  (Mrs.  Barry)  in  his  own  plays  ; plunged  thereafter 
into  wildest  dissipation,  and  died  destitute  and  neglected. 


238  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

from  the  great  Dryden ; and,  prouder  yet,  when, 
at  a later  time,  he  was  honored  by  that  tender  and 
pathetic  epistle  from  the  Laureate  : 

**  Already  I am  worn  with  cares  and  age, 

And  just  abandoning  the  ungrateful  stage  ; 

But  you,  whom  every  muse  and  grace  adorn, 

Whom  I foresee  to  better  fortune  born. 

Be  kind  to  my  remains  ; and  O defend, 

Against  your  judgment,  your  departed  friend  I ** 

I said  that  he  wrote  plays  ; wrote  them  by  the 
couple  — by  the  dozen  — by  the  score  possibly. 

You  do  not  know  them  ; and  I hope  you  never 
will  know  them  to  love  them.  They  have  fallen 
away  from  literature  — never  acted,  and  rarely  read. 
He  could  not  plot  a story,  and  he  had  not  the  dra- 
matic gift.  One  wonders  how  a theatreful  could 
have  listened  to  their  pomposity  and  inflation  and 
exaggerations.  But  they  did,  and  they  filled  Dry- 
den’s  pockets.  There  were  scenic  splendors,  in- 
deed, about  many  of  them  which  delighted  the  pit, 
and  which  the  poet  loved  as  accompaniments  to 
the  roll  of  his  sonorous  verse  ; there  were,  too, 
fragments  here  and  there,  with  epithet  and  char- 
acterization that  showed  his  mastership  ; and  some* 


DRYDEN^S  SATIRES. 


239 


times  the  most  graceful  of  lyrics  budded  out  from 
the  coarse  groundwork  of  the  play,  as  fair  in  sound 
as  they  were  foul  in  thought. 

In  private  intercourse  Dryden  is  represented  to 
have  been  a man  of  courteous  speech,  never  low 
and  ribald  — as  were  many  of  the  royal  favorites  ; 
and  when  he  undertook  playwriting  to  order,  to 
meet  the  profligate  tastes  of  the  court,  he  could 
not,  like  some  lesser  playwrights,  disguise  double- 
meanings and  vulgarities  under  a flimsy  veil  of 
courtliness  ; but  by  his  very  sincerity  he  made  all 
his  lewdness  rank,  and  all  his  indelicacies  brutal. 
This  will,  and  should,  I think,  keep  his  plays 
away  from  our  reading-desks. 

Dryden’s  satires,  written  later,  show  a better 
and  far  stronger  side  of  his  literary  quality  ; and 
Buckingham,  long  after  his  lineaments  shall  have 
faded  from  a mob  of  histories,  will  stand  preserved 
as  Zimri,  in  the  strong  pickle  of  Dryden’s  verse ; 
you  will  have  met  the  picture,  perhaps  without 
knowing  it  for  the  magnificent  courtier,  who  wrote 
The  Rehearsal : ” 

“ A man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind’s  epitome  : 


240 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong ; 

Was  everything  by  starts,  and  nothing  long, 

But  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon 
Was  chymist,  fiddler,  statesman,  and  buffoon ; 

Then  all  for  women,  painting,  rhyming,  drinking, 
Besides  ten  thousand  freaks  that  died  in  thinking. 

A man  who  writes  in  that  way  about  a peer  of 
England  was  liable  to  write  of  lesser  men  in  a 
manner  that  would  stir  hot  blood  ; and  he  did. 
Once  upon  a time  this  great  king  at  ‘‘Will’s" 
was  waylaid  and  sorrily  cudgelled  ; which  is  an 
experience  that  — however  it  may  come  about  — is 
not  elevating  in  its  effects,  nor  does  it  increase  our 
sense  of  a man’s  dignity  ; for  it  is  an  almost  uni- 
versal fact  that  the  men  most  worthy  of  respect,  in 
almost  any  society,  are  the  men  who  never  do  get 
quietly  cudgelled. 

Later  Poems  and  Purpose. 

Far  on  in  1682,  when  our  Dryden  was  waxing 
oldish,  and  when  he  had  given  over  play-going  for 
somewhat  more  of  church-going,  he  wrote,  in  the 
same  verse  with  his  satires,  and  with  the  same  ring- 
ing couplets  of  sound,  a defence  of  the  moderate 


DRYDEN^S  RELIGION. 


241 


liberal  cburchmansbip  that  does  not  yield  to  eccle- 
siastic fetters,  and  that  thinks  widely.  A little  later, 
in  1687,  he  writes  in  a more  assured  vein,  assuming 
bold  defence  of  Eomanism  — as  it  existed  in  that 
day  in  England  — to  which  faith  he  had  become  a 
convert.  This  last  is  a curiously  designed  poem, 
showing  how  little  he  had  the  arts  of  construction 
in  hand  ; it  is  a long  argument  between  a Hind  and 
a Panther,  in  the  shades  of  a forest.  Was  ever 
ecclesiasticism  so  recommended  before  ? Yet  there 
are  brave  and  imforgetable  lines  in  it : instance  the 
noble  rhythm,  and  the  noble  burden  of  that  pas- 
sage beginning  — like  a trumpet  note  — 

“ What  weight  of  ancient  witness  can  prevail, 

If  private  reason  hold  the  public  scale  ? ’’ 

And  again  the  fine  tribute  to  ‘‘  the  Church  : ” 

Thus  one,  thus  pure,  behold  her  largely  spread, 

Like  the  fair  ocean  from  her  mother  bed  ; 

From  East  to  West  triumphantly  she  rides  ; 

All  shores  are  watered  by  her  wealthy  tides  ; 

The  Gospel-sound,  diffused  from  pole  to  pole 
Where  winds  can  carry,  and  where  waves  can  roll ; 

The  self-same  doctrine  of  the  sacred  page 
Conveyed  to  every  clime,  in  every  age.'* 


11. —16 


242 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  RINGS. 


I think  Bishop  Heber  had  a reverent  and  a 
stealthy  look  upon  these  lines  when  he  wrote  a cer- 
tain stanza  of  his  Greenland’s  icy  mountains.” 

The  enemies  of  Dryden  did  not  fail  to  observe 
that  between  the  dates  of  the  two  professions  of 
faith  named,  Charles  IL  had  died,  summoning 
a Papist  priest,  at  the  very  last,  to  give  him  a 
chance  — and,  it  is  feared,  a small  one  — of  recon- 
cilement with  Heaven ; furthermore,  these  enemies 
remembered  that  the  bigot  James  H.  had  come  to 
the  throne,  full  of  Papist  zeal  and  of  a poor  hope  to 
bring  all  England  to  a great  somerset  of  faith.  Did 
Dryden  undergo  an  innocent  change?  Maybe ; 
may  not  be.  Certainly  neither  Lord  Macaulay,  nor 
Elkanah  Settle,  nor  Saintsbury,  nor  you,  nor  I,  have 
the  right  to  go  behind  the  veil  of  privacy  which  in 
such  matters  is  every  man’s  privilege. 

How  odd  it  seems  that  this  Papist  convert  of 
James  n.’s  time,  and  author  of  so  many  plays  that 
outranked  Etherege  in  rankness,  should  have  put 
the  Vent,  Creator,  of  Charlemagne  (if  it  be  his)  into 
such  reverent  and  trenchant  English  as  carries  it 
into  so  many  of  our  hymnals. 


DRYDEN  A TRANSLATOR, 


243 


‘‘  Creator  Spirit,  by  whose  aid 
The  world’s  foundations  first  were  laid, 

Come,  visit  every  humble  mind ; 

Come,  pour  thy  joys  on  humankind ; 

From  sin  and  sorrow  set  us  free, 

And  make  thy  temples  worthy  thee.” 

Nor  was  this  all  of  Dryden’s  translating  work. 
He  roamed  high  and  low  among  all  the  treasures  of 
the  ancients.  Theocritus  gave  his  tangle  of  sweet 
sounds  to  him,  and  Homer  his  hexameters ; Ju- 
venal and  Horace  and  Ovid  were  turned  into  his 
verse  ; and  Dryden’s  Virgil  is  the  only  Virgil  of 
thousands  of  readers.  He  sought  motive,  too,  in 
Boccaccio  and  Chaucer  ; and  within  times  the  oldest 
of  us  can  remember  his  “ Flower  and  Leaf and 
his  ‘‘Palamon  and  Arcite”  were  more  read  and 
known  than  the  poems  of  like  name  attributed  to 
Chaucer.  But  in  the  newer  and  more  popular  ren- 
derings and  printings  of  the  old  English  poet, 
Chaucer  has  come  to  his  own  again,  and  rings  out 
his  tales  with  a lark-like  melody  that  outgoes  in 
richness  and  charm  all  the  happy  paraphrases  of 
Dryden. 

A still  more  dangerous  task  our  poet  undertook 
in  the  days  of  his  dramatic  work.  I have  in  my  lib- 


244 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS, 


rary  some  half  dozen  of  Diy den’s  plays  — yellowed 
and  tattered,  and  of  the  imprint  of  1710  or  there- 
about — and  among  them  is  one  bearing  this  title, 
The  Tempest,  originally  written  by  William  Shake- 
speare, and  altered  and  improved  by  John  Dry  den  ; 
and  the  story  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  underwent 
the  same  sort  of  improvement — dangerous  work  for 
Dryden ; dangerous  for  any  of  us.  And  yet  this 
latter,  under  name  of  ‘"All  for  Love,”  was  one  of 
Dryden’s  greatest  successes,  and  reckoned  by  many 
dramatic  critics  of  that  day  far  superior  to  Shake- 
speare. 

One  more  extract  from  this  voluminous  poet  and 
we  shall  leave  him  ; it  was  written  when  he  was 
well  toward  sixty,  and  when  his  dramatic  experi- 
ences were  virtually  ended ; it  is  from  an  ode  in 
memory  of  Mistress  Kilhgrew,  a friend  and  a poetess. 
In  the  course  of  it  he  makes  honest  bewaihnent, 
into  which  it  would  seem  his  whole  heart  entered  : 

“ O gracious  God  I how  far  have  we 
Profaned  thy  heavenly  gift  of  Poesy  ? 

Made  prostitute  and  profligate  the  muse, 

Debased  to  each  obscene  and  impious  use, 

Whose  harmony  was  first  ordained  above 
For  tongues  of  angels,  and  for  hymns  of  love  ? ” 


JOHN  DRYDEN.  245 

And  again,  a verselet  that  is  full  of  all  his  most 
characteristic  manner  : 

“ When  in  mid-air  the  golden  trump  shall  sound, 

To  raise  the  nations  under  ground ; 

When  in  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 

The  judging  God  shall  close  the  book  of  Fate; 

And  there  the  last  assizes  keep, 

For  those  who  wake  and  those  who  sleep : 

When  rattling  bones  together  fly, 

From  the  four  corners  of  the  sky  ; 

When  sinews  o’er  the  skeletons  are  spread, 

Those  clothed  with  flesh,  and  life  inspires  the  dead ; 
The  sacred  poets  first  shall  hear  the  sound, 

And  foremost  from  the  tomb  shall  bound, 

For  they  are  covered  with  the  lightest  ground ; 

And  straight,  with  inborn  vigor,  on  the  wing, 

Like  mounting  larks,  to  the  new  morning  sing. 

Then  thou,  sweet  Saint,  before  the  quire  shall  go, 

As  Harbinger  of  Heaven,  the  way  to  show. 

The  way  which  thou  so  well  hast  learnt  below  I ” 

We  have  given  much  space  to  our  talk  about 
Dry  den.  Is  it  because  we  like  him  so  well  ? By  no 
means.  It  is  because  he  was  the  greatest  master 
among  the  literary  craftsmen  of  his  day ; it  is  be- 
cause he  wrought  in  so  many  and  various  forms, 
and  always  with  a steady,  unflinching  capacity  for 
toil,  which  knew  no  shake  or  pause  ; it  is  because 


246  LANDS,  LETTERS,  <S^*  KINGS, 

he  had  a marvellously  keen  sense  for  all  the  sym- 
phonies of  heroic  language,  and  could  always  cheat 
and  charm  the  ear  with  his  reverberant  thunders  ; 
it  is  because  he  spanned  a great  interval  of  English 
letters,  covering  it  with  various  accomplishment ; 
criticising  keenly,  and  accepted  as  a critic  ; judging 
fairly,  and  accepted  as  a judge  in  the  great  court  of 
language ; teaching,  by  his  example,  of  uses  and 
fashions  of  use,  which  were  heeded  by  his  contem- 
poraries, and  which  put  younger  men  upon  the 
track  of  better  and  worthier  achievement. 

Again,  it  is  because  he,  more  than  any  other  of 
his  epoch,  represented  in  himself  and  in  what  he 
wrought,  the  drift  and  bent  and  actualities  of  the 
time.  There  were  changes  of  dynasties,  and  he  put 
into  language,  for  all  England,  the  lamentation 
over  the  old  and  the  glorification  of  the  new; 
there  were  plagues  and  conflagrations  and  upbuild- 
ings  of  desolated  cities — and  the  fumes  and  the 
flames  and  the  din  of  all  these  get  speech  of  him, 
and  such  color  as  put  them  in  undying  record  upon 
the  roll  of  history  ; there  were  changes  of  faith, 
and  vague  out-reaches  for  some  sure  ground  of  re- 
ligious establishment  — and  his  poems  tell  of  the 


DRYDEN^S  FAME. 


247 


struggle,  and  in  his  own  personality  represent  the 
stress  of  a whole  nation’s  doubts  ; there  are 
battles  raging  round  the  coasts  — and  the  echo  of 
them,  in  some  shape  of  trumpet  blare  or  shrill 
military  resonance,  seems  never  to  go  out  of  his 
poems  ; dissoluteness  rules  in  the  court  and  in 
the  city,  infecting  all  — and  Dryden  wallows  with 
them  through  a score  of  his  uncanny  dramas. 

Put  his  poems  together  in  the  order  of  their 
composition,  and  without  any  other  historic  data 
whatever,  they  would  show  the  changes  and  quavers 
and  sudden  enthusiasms  and  bestialities  and  doubts 
and  growth  of  the  National  Life.  But  they  would 
most  rarely  show  the  noble  impulses  that  kindle 
hope  and  foretoken  better  things  to  come  — rarely 
the  elevating  purpose  that  commands  our  reverence. 

No  fictitious  character  of  his  is  a live  one  to-day ; 
you  can  hardly  recall  one  if  you  try.*  No  couplet 
or  verselet  of  his  is  so  freighted  with  a serene  or 
hopeful  philosophy  as  to  make  our  march  the 
blither  by  reason  of  it  down  the  corridors  of  time. 
No  blast  of  all  his  fanfaron  of  trumpets  sounds  the 

* Shall  I except  his  re  telling  of  the  tale  of  Cymon  and 
^ iphigene  the  Fair  ?’* 


248  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

opening  of  the  gates  upon  any  Delectable  Moun- 
tains. A great,  clever,  literary  worker  ! I think 
that  is  all  we  can  say  of  him.  And  when  you  or  I 
pass  under  his  monument  in  the  corner  of  West- 
minster Abbey,  we  will  stand  bowed  respectfully, 
but  not  with  any  such  veneration,  I think,  as  we 
expect  to  carry  to  the  tomb  of  Milton  or  of 
Chaucer ; and  if  one  falls  on  Pope  — what  then  ? 
I think  we  might  pause  — waver  ; more  polish  here 
— more  power  there  — the  humanities  not  radiant 
in  either;  and  so  we  might  safely  sidle  away  to 
warm  ourselves  before  the  cenotaph  of  Goldsmith. 

John  Locke. 

Another  man  who  grew  up  in  these  times  in  Eng- 
land, and  who  from  his  study- window  at  Oxford 
(where  he  had  been  Lecturer  on  Rhetoric)  saw  the 
Great  Fire  of  London  in  the  shape  of  a vast,  yellow, 
sulphurous-looking  cloud,  of  portentous  aspect,  roll- 
ing toward  the  zenith,  and  covering  half  the  sky, 
was  Mr.  John  Locke.* 


♦John  Locke,  b.  1632;  d.  1704.  The  best  edition  of 
Locke’s  works  is  said  to  be  that  by  Bishop  Law,  four  vo)- 


JOHN  LOCKE.  249 

We  are  too  apt,  I think,  to  dismiss  this  author 
from  our  thoughts  as  a man  full  only  of  dreary 
metaphysic  subtleties  ; and  support  the  belief  with 
the  story  that  our  Jonathan  Edwards  read  his 
treatise  on  the  Human  Understanding  with  great  de- 
light at  the  age  of  fourteen.  Yet  Locke,  although 
a man  of  the  keenest  and  rarest  intellect  — which 
almost  etherialized  his  looks  — was  possessed  of  a 
wonderful  deal  of  what  he  would  have  called  “ hard, 
round-about  sense  ; ” indeed  it  would  be  quite  pos- 
sible to  fill  a whole  calendar  with  bits  of  his  printed 
talk  that  would  be  as  pitpat  and  common-sensical 
as  anything  in  Poor  Richard's  Almanac.  Moreover, 
he  could,  on  occasions,  tell  a neat  and  droll  story, 
which  would  set  the  ‘Hable  in  a roar.” 

Some  facts  in  the  life  of  this  great  thinker  and 
writer  are  worth  our  remembering,  not  only  by 
reason  of  the  fame  of  his  books,  but  because  in 
all  those  years  whose  turbulent  rush  and  corrupt- 
ing influences  have  shown  themselves  in  our  pages, 
John  Locke  lived  an  upright,  manly,  self-respect- 
ing life,  though  brought  into  intimate  relations  with 

umes,  4to,  1777.  For  Life,  Fox  Bourne  (1876)  is  latest  au- 
thority. 


250 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


many  most  prominent  at  court.  He  was  bom  in 
Western  England,  north  of  the  Mendip  Hills ; and 
after  fourteen  years  of  quiet  country  life,  and  kind 
parental  training,  among  the  orchard  slopes  of 
Somersetshire,  went  to  Westminster  School;  was 
many  years  thereafter  at  Oxford  ; studied  medi- 
cine ; met  Lord  Ashley  (afterward  the  great  Shaftes- 
bury— first  party-leader  in  English  parliamentary 
history),  who  was  so  taken  by  the  pale,  intellectual 
face  of  the  young  Doctor  that  he  carried  him  off  to 
London,  and  domiciled  him  in  his  great  house  upon 
the  Strand.  There  Locke  directed  the  studies  of 
Ashley’s  son  ; and  presently  — such  was  my  Lord’s 
confidence  in  him  — was  solicited  to  find  a wife  for 
the  young  gentleman  ; ^ which  he  did,  to  the  great 
acceptance  of  all  parties,  by  taking  him  off  into 
Kutlandshire,  and  introducing  him  to  a pretty 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Kutland.  Fancy  the  author 
of  an  Essay  Concerning  the  Human  Understanding 
setting  off  in  a coach,  with  six  long-tailed  Flemish 

* This  was  a weak  scion  of  the  house,  ‘‘horn  a shapeless 
lump,  like  anarchy,”  as  Dry  den  savagely  says;  hut  — hy 
this  very  match  — he  became  the  father  of  the  brilliant  au- 
thor of  the  Characteristics  (1711). 


JOHN  LOCKE.  251 

horses,  for  a four  days’  journey  into  the  north  of 
England  — with  a young  scion  of  the  Ashleys  — 
upon  such  an  errand  as  that ! Our  doctors  in  met- 
aphysics do  not,  I believe,  engage  in  similar  ser- 
vice ; yet  I suppose  nice  observation  would  disclose 
great  and  curious  mental  activities  in  the  evolution 
of  such  schemes. 

The  philosopher  must  have  known  Dryden, 
both  being  early  members  of  the  Royal  Society  ; 
but  I have  a fancy  that  Locke  was  a man  who  did 
not  — save  on  rarest  occasions — take  a pipe  and  a 
mug  at  such  a place  as  Will’s  Coffee-house.  His 
tastes  led  him  more  to  banquets  at  Exeter  House. 
There  was  foreign  travel,  also,  in  which  he  accom- 
plished himself  in  continental  languages  and  soci- 
alities ; he  had  offers  of  diplomatic  preferment,  but 
his  doubtful  health  (always  making  him  what  over- 
well people  call  a fussy  man)  forbade  acceptance  ; 
else  we  might  have  had  in  him  another  Sir  Will- 
iam Temple.  Shaftesbury  interested  him  in  his 
scheme  of  new  planting  the  Carolina  colony  in 
America  ; and  John  Locke  drew  up  rules  for  its  po- 
litical guidance.  Some  of  these  sound  very  drolly 
now.  Thus  — no  man  was  to  be  a freeman  of  Car- 


252 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


olina  unless  he  acknowledged  a God,  and  agreed 
that  he  was  to  be  publicly  and  solemnly  wor- 
shipped. The  members  of  one  church  were  not  to 
molest  or  persecute  those  of  another.  Again,  ‘‘no 
one  shall  be  permitted  to  plead  before  a court  of 
justice  for  money  or  reward.”  What  a howling  des- 
ert this  would  make  of  most  of  our  courts  ! 

Again,  he  writes  with  great  zest  upon  the  subject 
of  Education,  and  almost  with  the  warmth  of  that 
old  Eoger  Ascham,  whose  maxims  I cited  in  one  of 
our  earlier  talks : 

“ Till  you  can  find  a school  wherein  it  is  possible  for  the 
master  to  look  after  the  manners  of  his  scholars,  and  can 
show  as  great  effects  of  his  care  of  forming  their  minds  to 
virtue,  and  their  carriage  to  good  breeding,  as  of  forming 
their  tongues  to  the  learned  languages,  you  must  confess 
that  you  have  a strange  value  for  words,  to  hazard  your  sons’ 
innocence  and  virtue  for  a little  Greek  and  Latin.” 

And  again : 

I know  not  why  anyone  should  waste  his  time  and  heat 
his  head  about  the  Latin  grammar,  who  does  not  intend  to 
be  a critic,  or  make  speeches,  and  write  despatches  in  it.  If 
his  use  of  it  be  only  to  understand  some  books  writ  in  it 
without  a critical  knowledge  of  the  tongue  itself,  reading 
alone  will  attain  his  end,  without  charging  his  mind  with 
the  multiplied  rules  and  intricacies  of  grammar.”  . . . 


JOHN  LOCKE. 


253 


“If.  there  may  be  any  reasons  against  children’s  making 
Latin  themes  at  school,  I have  much  more  to  say  and  of  more 
weight  against  their  making  verses  — verses  of  any  sort.  For 
if  he  has  no  genius  to  poetry,  ’tis  the  most  unreasonable 
thing  in  the  world  to  torment  a child,  and  waste  his  time 
about  that  which  can  never  succeed  : and  if  he  have  a poetic 
vein  — me  thinks  the  parents  should  labor  to  have  it  stifled  : 
for  if  he  proves  a successful  rhymer,  and  get  once  the  repu- 
tation of  a wit,  I desire  it  may  be  considered  what  company 
and  places  he  is  likely  to  spend  his  time  in  — nay,  and  his 
estate  too.” 

By  which  I am  more  than  ever  convinced  that 
Locke  did  not  sup  often  with  Dry  den  at  “ Wiirs/* 
and  that  you  will  find  no  pleasant  verselets  — look 
as  hard  as  you  may — on  a single  page  of  his  dis- 
course on  the  Human  Understanding. 

When  Charles  grew  suspicious  of  Shaftesbury, 
and  the  Earl  was  shorn  of  his  power,  no  little  of  the 
odium  fell  upon  his  protege  ; and  for  a time  there 
was  an  enforced — or  at  least  a very  prudent  — exile 
for  Locke,  at  one  time  in  France  and  at  another 
in  Holland.  It  was  on  these  absences  that  his  pen 
was  busiest.  In  1689  he  returned  to  England  in 
the  trail  of  William  HI. ; came  to  new  honors  under 
that  monarch  ; published  his  great  work,  which 
had  been  simmering  in  his  brain  for  ten  years  or 


254 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


more ; made  a great  fame  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
wrote  wisely  on  many  topics.  Meanwhile  his  old 
enemy,  the  asthma,  was  aiSicting  him  sorely.  Lon- 
don smoke  was  a torture  to  him  ; but  when  he  went 
only  so  little  distance  away  (twenty  miles  north- 
ward) as  the  country  home  of  his  friends  Sir  Fran- 
cis and  Lady  Masham,  a delightful  calm  came  to 
him.  He  was  given  his  own  apartment  there ; 
never  did  hosts  more  enjoy  a guest ; and  never  a 
guest  enjoyed  more  the  immunities  and  kindnesses 
which  Sir  Francis  and  Lady  bestowed  upon  him. 
Twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  idyllic  life  for  the  phil- 
osopher followed,  in  the  wooded  alleys  and  upon 
the  charming  lawns  of  the  old  manor-house  of 
Oates,  in  the  county  of  Essex  ; there  were  leisurely, 
coy  journeys  to  London  ; there  were  welcoming 
visits  from  old  friends ; there  was  music  indoors, 
and  music  — of  the  birds  — without.  Bachelors 
rarely  come  to  those  quietudes  and  joys  of  a home- 
life  which  befell  the  old  age  of  Locke,  and  equipped 
all  his  latter  days  with  such  serenities  as  were  a 
foretaste  of  heaven. 

He  does  not  lie  in  Westminster  Abbey  : I think 
he  would  have  rebelled  among  the  poets : he  sleeps 


DEATH  OF  CHARLES  11. 


255 


more  quietly  in  the  pretty  church-yard  of  High- 
Lavor,  a little  way  off,  northward,  from  the  New 
Park  of  Epping  Forest. 

End  of  the  King  and  Others. 

The  lives  of  these  two  men — Dryden  and  Locke 
— have  brought  us  past  the  whole  reach  of  Charles 
IL’s  reign.  That  ignoble  monarch  has  met  his  fate 
courageously  ; some  days  before  the  immediate  end 
he  knew  it  was  coming,  and  had  kind  words  for 
those  about  him. 

He  died  on  a Friday,^  and  on  the  Sunday  before 
had  held  great  revel  in  the  famous  gallery  of  White- 
hall ; next  day  came  the  warnings,  and  then  the 
blow  — paralytic,  or  other  such  — which  shrivelled 
his  showy  powers,  and  brought  his  swarthy  face  to 
a whiteness  and  a death-like  pallor  that  shocked 
those  gay  people  who  belonged  in  the  palace. 
Then  came  the  scourging  with  hot  iron,  and  the 
administration  of  I know  not  what  foul  drugs  that 
belonged  to  the  blind  medication  of  that  day  — all 
in  vain  ; there  were  suspicions  of  poison ; but  the 


February  6,  1685. 


256 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


poison  he  died  of  was  of  his  own  making,  and  he 
had  been  taking  it  ever  since  boyhood. 

A Catholic  priest  came  to  him  stealthily  and 
made  the  last  promises  to  him  he  was  ever  to  hear. 
To  a courtier,  who  came  again  and  again,  he  apolo- 
gized — showing  his  courtesy  to  the  last.  ‘‘  Pm  an 
awful  time  in  dying,”  he  said;  and  to  somebody 
else  — his  brother,  perhaps  — “ don’t  let  poor  Nell 
Gwynne  starve  and  so  died. 

James,  the  successor,  was  not  loved — scarce  by 
anyone ; bigoted,  obstinate,  selfish,  he  ran  quickly 
through  the  short  race  of  which  the  histories  will 
tell  you.  Only  three  years  of  it,  or  thereabout,  and 
then  — presto!  like  the  changing  of  the  scenes  at 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  in  one  of  the  splendid  spec- 
tacles of  the  day  — James  scuds  away,  and  Cousin 
William  (with  his  wife  Mary,  both  of  the  blood 
royal  of  England)  comes  in,  and  sets  up  a fashion  of 
rule,  and  an  assured  Protestant  succession  of  regal 
names  which  is  not  ended  yet. 

And  now,  in  closing  this  talk,  I will  summon  into 
presence  once  again  some  of  the  notable  personages 
who  have  given  intellectual  flavor  to  the  years  we 
have  gone  over,  and  will  call  the  roll  of  a few  new 


THE  DEAD  ONES. 


257 


names  among  those  actors  who  are  to  take  in  swift 
succession  the  places  of  those  who  disappear.  At 
the  date  where  we  now  are  — 1688  — the  date  of 
the  last  English  Eevolution  (who,  pray,  can  pre- 
dict the  next?),  the  date  of  John  Bunyan’s  death, 
the  date  of  Alexander  Pope’s  birth  — excellent  re- 
membrancers, these  ! — at  this  epoch,  I say,  of  the 
incoming  of  William  and  Mary,  all  those  dramatic 
writers  — of  whom  we  made  mention  as  having  put 
a little  tangled  fringe  of  splendor  about  the  great 
broidery  of  Shakespeare’s  work — were  gone.  So 
was  Herrick,  with  his  sweet  poems,  and  his  pigs 
and  tankards;  and  Howell,  and  Wotton,  and  the 
saintly  George  Herbert,  and  dear,  good,  old  Izaak 
Walton  — all  comfortably  dead  and  buried.  So 
were  Andrew  Marvell,  and  the  author  of  Hudihras. 
Ai'chbishop  Laud  was  gone  long  since  to  the  scaf- 
fold, with  the  fullest  acquiescence  of  all  New  Eng- 
landers ; Jeremy  Taylor  gone  — if  ever  man  had 
right  of  way  there  — to  heaven  ; Milton  dead  ; 
Cowley  dead  ; Waller  dead. 

Old,  ear-cropped  Prynne,  of  the  Histriomastix, 
was  still  living  — close  upon  seventy — grim  and 
gray,  and  as  pugnacious  as  a bull -terrier.  Among 


258 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


others  lingering  upon  the  downhill  side  of  life 
were  Eobert  Boyle  and  that  John  Evelyn,  whose 
love  of  the  fields  and  gardens  and  trees  had  put 
long  life  in  his  blood  and  brain.  Sir  William 
Temple,  too,  had  still  some  years  of  elegant  distinc- 
tion to  coquet  with ; our  old  friend  of  the  Pep-sian 
journal  was  yet  alert  — his  political  ambitions  ac- 
tive, his  eye-sight  failing  — never  thinking,  we  may 
be  sure,  that  his  pot-luck  of  a Diary  would  keep 
him  more  savory  with  us  to-day  than  all  his  wigs 
and  his  coaches,  and  his  fine  acquaintance,  and  his 
great  store  of  bric-a-brac. 

Isaac  Newton  was  not  fifty  yet,  but  had  somehow 
lost  that  elasticity  and  searchingness  of  brain  which 
had  untwisted  the  sunbeams,  and  solved  the  riddle 
of  gravitation.  Bishop  Burnet,  and  that  William 
Penn  whose  name  ought  to  hold  place  on  any  Am- 
erican file  of  England’s  worthies,  were  in  the  full 
vigor  of  middle  age.  Daniel  De  Foe  was  some 
eight  and  twenty,  and  knovm  only  as  a sharp 
trader,  who  had  written  a few  pamphlets,  and  who 
was  enrolled  in  those  soldier  ranks  which  went  to 
greet  William  III.  on  his  arrival  at  Torbay. 

Matthew  Prior  was  still  younger,  and  had  made 


THE  NEW  COMERS.  259 

no  show  of  those  graces  and  that  art  which  gave 
him  later  an  ambassador’s  place,  and  a tomb  and 
monument  in  the  ‘‘Poet’s  Corner”  of  the  Abbey. 
Jonathan  Swift,  then  scarce  twenty-one,  is  un- 
heard of  as  yet,  and  is  nursing  quietly  the  power 
and  the  bitterness  with  which,  through  two  suc- 
ceeding reigns,  he  is  to  write  and  rave  and  rage. 

Still  more  youthful  are  those  trro  promising  lads, 
Addison  and  Steele,  listening  with  their  sharp 
young  ears  to  the  fine  verses  of  Mr.  Dryden,  and 
watching  and  waiting  for  the  day  when  they,  too, 
shall  say  somewhat  to  be  of  record  for  ages  after 
them.  And  so,  with  these  bright  young  fellows  at 
the  front,  and  the  excellent  gray-heads  I have 
named  at  the  rear,  we  ring  down  the  curtain  upon 
our  present  entertainment  with  an  Exeunt  onli- 
nes ! ” 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

I HAVE  a fear  that  my  readers  were  not  over- 
much interested  in  what  I had  to  say  of  that 
witty  Dr.  Thomas  Fuller  who  wrote  about  the 
Worthies  of  England^  and  who  pressed  his  stalwart 
figure  (for  he  was  of  the  bigness  of  our  own  Phillips 
Brooks  — corporeal  and  mental)  through  many  a 
London  crowd  that  came  to  his  preachments.  Yet 
his  worthiness  is  something  larger  than  that  which 
comes  from  his  story  of  the  Worthies. 

Sir  William  Temple,  too,  is  a name  that  can 
hardly  have  provoked  much  enthusiasm,  unless 
among  those  who  love  gardens,  and  who  recall 
with  rural  unction  his  horticultural  experiences  at 
Sheen,  and  at  Moor  Park  in  Surrey.  But  that 
kindly,  handsome,  meditative,  eccentric  doctor  of 
Norwich  — Sir  Thomas  Browne  — was  of  a differ- 
ent and  more  lovable  quality,  the  memory  of  which 


SEQUENCE  OF  THE  KINGS. 


261 


I hope  may  find  lodgement  in  the  reader’s  heart. 
His  Religio  Medici,  if  not  his  Hydriotaphia,  should 
surely  find  place  in  every  well-appointed  library. 

As  for  John  Dryden  — do  what  you  like  with  his 
books ; but  do  not  forget  that  he  left  behind  him 
writings  that  show  all  the  colors  and  reflect  all  the 
follies  and  faiths  of  the  days  in  which  he  lived  — 
plays  with  a portentous  pomp  of  language — lyrics 
that  were  most  melodious  and  most  unsavory  — 
satire  that  flashed  and  cut  like  a sword,  and  odes 
that  had  the  roll  and  swell  of  martial  music  in 
them. 

John  Locke  if  less  known,  was  worthier ; and 
we  have  reason,  which  I tried  to  show,  for  think- 
ing of  him  as  a pure-hearted,  level-headed,  high- 
minded  man  — an  abiding  honor  to  his  race. 


Kings  Charles^  James^  and  William. 

It  may  help  the  reader  to  keep  in  memory  the  se- 
quence of  these  English  sovereigns  if  I tell  him 
somewhat  of  their  relationship.  James  II.  — pre- 
viously and  longer  known  as  that  Duke  of  York,  in 
honor  of  whom  our  metropolitan  city  (in  those  days 


262 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


conquered  from  the  Dutch)  was  called  New  York 
— we  know  as  only  brother  to  Charles  n.,  who 
died  without  legitimate  children.  This  James  was 
as  bigoted  and  obstinate  as  Charles  was  profligate 
and  suave.  We  think  of  him  as  having  lost  his 
throne  in  that  revolution  of  1688,  by  reason  of  his 
popish  tendencies ; but  it  is  doubtful  if  Protestant- 
ism would  have  saved  him,  or  made  a better  man  of 
him.  He  had  married  — and  it  was  a marriage  he 
tried  hard  to  abjure  and  escape  from  — a daughter 
of  that  Earl  of  Clarendon  whose  History  of  the  Re- 
hellion I named  to  you.  There  were  two  daughters 
by  this  marriage,  Mary  and  Anne ; both  of  them, 
through  the  influence  of  their  Clarendon  grand- 
father, brought  up  as  Protestants.  The  elder  of 
these,  Mary,  was  a flne  woman,  tall,  dignifled, 
graceful,  cultivated  — as  times  went  — whose  great- 
est foible  was  a love  for  cards,  at  which  she  played 
for  heavy  stakes,  and  — often.  Her  sister  Anne 
shared  the  same  foible,  and  gave  it  cherishment  all 
her  life  ; but  was  not  reckoned  the  equal  of  her 
elder  sister ; had  none  of  her  grace  ; was  short, 
dumpy,  over-fond  of  good  dinners,  and  with  such 
limited  culture  as  made  her  notelets  (even  when 


WILLIAM  IIL 


263 


she  came  to  be  Queen)  full  of  blunders  that  would 
put  a school-mistress  of  our  day  into  spasms.  We 
shall  meet  her,  and  more  pleasantly,  again. 

But  Mary  — heir  next  after  James  to  the  throne 
— had  married  William  of  Orange,  who  was  a fight- 
ing Dutch  general ; keen,  cool,  selfish,  brave,  calcu- 
lating, with  an  excellent  head  for  business  ; cruel  at 
times,  unscrupulous,  too,  but  a good  Protestant. 
He  was  great-grandson  to  that  famous  William  the 
Silent,  whose  story  everyone  has  read,  or  should 
read,  in  the  pages  of  Motley. 

But  how  came  he,  a Dutchman,  and  speaking 
English  brokenly,  to  share  the  British  throne  with 
Mary  ? There  were  two  very  excellent  reasons : 
First,  he  was  ovm  cousin  to  Mary,  his  mother  hav- 
ing been  a daughter  of  Charles  I. ; and  next,  he  had 
kingly  notions  of  husbandship,  and  refused  to  go 
to  England  on  any  throne-seeking  errand,  which 
might  involve  hard  fighting,  without  sharing  to 
the  full  the  sovereignty  of  his  wife  Mary. 

So  he  did  go  as  conqueror  and  king  ; there  being 
most  easy  march  to  London  ; the  political  scene 
changing  like  the  turn  of  a kaleidoscope  ; but  there 
came  fighting  in  Ireland,  as  at  Londonderry  and 


264  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

the  battle  of  the  Boyne ; and  a brooding  unrest  in 
Scotland,  of  which,  whenever  you  come  to  read  or 
study,  you  should  mate  your  reading  with  that 
charming  story  of  Old  Mortality  — one  of  the 
best  of  Scott’s.  Its  scene  reaches  over  from  the 
days  of  Charles  IT.  to  the  early  years  of  the  Dutch 
King  William,  and  sets  before  one  more  vividly 
than  any  history  all  those  elements  of  unrest  with 
which  the  new  sovereign  had  to  contend  on  his 
northern  borders  — the  crazy  fanaticism  of  fierce 
Cameronians  — the  sturdy,  cantankerous  zeal  of 
Presbyterians  — the  workings  of  the  old,  hot,  obsti- 
nate leaven  of  Prelacy,  and  the  romantic,  lingering 
loyalty  to  a Stuart  king. 

But  William  ended  by  having  all  his  kingdom 
well  in  hand,  and  all  his  household  too.  There  was 
strong  affection  between  William  and  Mary  ; he  rel- 
ishing her  discretion,  her  reserves,  and  her  culture  ; 
and  she  loving  enough  to  forget  the  harsh  gaunt- 
leted  hand  which  he  put  upon  those  who  were  near- 
est and  dearest  to  him.  He  was  more  military  than 
diplomatic,  and  I think  believed  in  no  Scripture 
more  devoutly  than  in  that  which  sets  forth  the 
mandate,  “Wives,  obey  your  husbands.” 


WILLIAM  III. 


265 


The  King  was  not  a strong  man  physically,  though 
a capital  soldier ; he  was  short,  awkward,  halting  in 
movement,  appearing  best  in  the  saddle  and  witk 
battle  flaming  in  his  front ; he  had  asthma,  too,  fear- 
fully ; was  irritable — full  of  coughs  and  colds  — 
building  a new  palace  upon  the  flank  of  Hampton 
Court,  to  get  outside  of  London  smoke  and  fogs ; 
setting  out  trees  there,  and  digging  ponds  in  Dutch 
style,  which  you  may  see  now  ; building  Kensington, 
too,  which  was  then  out  of  town,  and  planting  and 
digging  there  — of  which  you  may  see  results  over 
the  mouldy  brick  wall  that  still  hems  in  that  old 
abode  of  royalty.  He  carried  his  asthma,  and  dys- 
pepsia, and  smoking  Dutch  dragoons  to  both  places. 
People  thought  surely  that  the  Queen,  so  well  made 
and  blessed  with  wonderful  appetite,  would  outlive 
him,  and  so  give  to  the  history  of  England  a Mary 
n.  ; but  she  did  not.  An  attack  of  small-pox,  not 
combated  in  those  days  by  vaccination,  or  even  in- 
oculation, carried  her  off  on  a short  illness. 

He  grieved,  as  people  thought  so  stern  a mas- 
ter could  not  grieve ; but  rallied  and  built  to  the 
Queen’s  memory  that  most  magnificent  of  monu- 
ments, Greenwich  Hospital,  which  shows  its  domes 


266 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


and  its  royal  fa9ade  stretching  along  the  river  bank, 
to  the  myriad  of  strangers  who  every  year  sail  up 
or  down  the  Thames. 

He  made  friends,  too,  with  Princess  Anne,  the  sis- 
ter of  the  dead  Queen,  and  now  heir  to  the  throne. 
This  Princess  Anne  (afterward  Queen  Anne)  was 
married  to  a prince  of  Denmark,  only  notable  for 
doing  nothing  excellently  well ; and  was  mother  of 
a young  lad,  called  Duke  of  Gloucester,  whom  all 
England  looked  upon  as  their  future  king.  And 
this  little  Duke,  after  Queen  Mary’s  death,  came  to 
be  presented  at  court  in  a blue  velvet  costume, 
blazing  all  over  with  diamonds,  of  which  one  may 
get  a good  notion  from  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller’s  paint- 
ing of  him,  now  in  Hampton  Court.  But  the  velvet 
and  the  diamonds  and  best  of  care  could  not  save 
the  weakly,  blue-eyed,  fair-cheeked,  precocious  lad  ; 
his  precocity  was  a fatal  one,  due  to  a big  hydro- 
cephalic head  that  bent  him  down  and  carried  him 
to  the  grave  while  William  was  yet  King. 

The  Princess  mother  was  in  despair  ; was  herself 
feeble,  too  ; small,  heavy,  dropsical,  from  all  which 
she  rallied,  however,  and  at  the  death  of  William, 
which  occurred  by  a fall  from  his  horse  in  1702, 


WILLIAM  III.  267 

came  to  be  that  Queen  Anne,  who  through  no 
special  virtues  of  her  own,  gave  a name  to  a great 
epoch  in  English  history,  and  in  these  latter  days 
has  given  a name  to  very  much  architecture  and 
furniture  and  crockery,  which  have  as  little  to  do 
with  her  as  they  have  with  our  King  Benjamin  of 
Washington. 

I may  have  more  to  say  of  her  when  we  shall 
have  brought  the  literary  current  of  our  story  more 
nearly  abreast  of  her  times. 

There  was  not  much  of  literary  patronage  flow- 
ing out  from  King  William.  I think  there  was 
never  a time  when  he  would  not  have  counted  a 
good  dictionary  the  best  of  books,  not  excepting 
the  Bible ; and  I suspect  that  he  had  about  the 
same  contempt  for  ‘‘literary  fellers”  which  be- 
longs to  our  average  Congressman.  Yet  there  were 
shoals  of  poets  in  his  time  who  would  have  de- 
lighted to  burn  incense  under  the  nostrils  of  the 
asthmatic  King. 


268  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Some  Literary  Fellows. 

There  was  Prior,*  for  instance,  who,  from  having 
been  the  son  of  a taverner  at  Whitehall,  came  to  be 
a polished  wit,  and  at  last  an  ambassador,  through 
the  influence  of  strong  friends  about  the  court.  In 
his  university  days  he  had  ventured  to  ridicule,  in 
rattling  verse,  the  utterances  of  the  great  Dryden. 
You  will  know  of  him  best,  perhaps,  if  you  know 
him  at  all,  by  a paraphrase  he  made  of  that  tender 
ballad  of  the  ‘‘Nut-brown  Maid,”  in  which  the 
charming  naturalness  of  the  old  verse  is  stuck  over 
with  the  black  patches  of  Prior’s  pretty  rhetoric. 
But  I am  tempted  to  give  you  a fairer  and  a more 
characteristic  specimen  of  his  vivacity  and  grace. 
Here  it  is : 

“ What  I speak,  my  fair  Chloe,  and  what  I write,  shows 
The  difference  there  is  betwixt  nature  and  art ; 

I court  others  in  verse  ; but  I love  thee  in  prose  ; 

And  they  have  mj  whimsies,  but  thou  hast  my  heart. 
So  when  I am  wearied  with  wandering  all  day, 

To  thee,  my  delight,  in  the  evening  I come, 

No  matter  what  beauties  I saw  in  my  way  ; 

They  were  but  my  risits^  and  thou  art  my  home.” 


♦Blatthew  Prior,  b.  1664;  d.  1721. 


WILLIAM  CONGREVE.  269 

Remember,  these  lines  were  written  by  a poet, 
who  on  an  important  occasion  represented  the 
Government  of  Queen  Anne  at  the  great  court  of 
Louis  XIV.  of  France.  This  Prior — when  Queen 
Mary  died — had  his  consolatory  verses  for  King 
William.  Indeed  that  death  of  Queen  Mary  set  a 
great  deal  of  poetry  upon  the  flow.  There  was 
Wilham  Congreve,'^  who  though  a young  man,  not 
yet  turned  of  thirty,  had  won  a great  rank  in  those 
days  by  his  witty  comedies.  He  wrote  a pastoral 
— cleaner  than  most  of  his  writing  — in  honor  of 
William’s  lost  Queen : 

“ No  more  these  woods  shall  with  her  sight  be  blest, 

Nor  with  her  feet  these  flowery  plains  be  prest ; 

No  more  the  winds  shall  with  her  tresses  play, 

And  from  her  balmy  breath  steal  sweets  away. 

Oh,  she  was  heavenly  fair,  in  face  and  mind. 

Never  in  nature  were  such  beauties  joined  ; 

Without  — all  shining,  and  within  — all  white  ; 

Pure  to  the  sense,  and  pleasing  to  the  sight ; 

Like  some  rare  flower,  whose  leaves  all  colors  yield, 
And  — opening  ^ is  with  sweetest  odors  filled.” 


* William  Congreve,  b.  1670 ; d.  1729.  See  edition  of 
his  dramatic  works,  with  pleasant  introduction  by  Leigh 
Hunt  (1840). 


270 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Yet  all  this  would  have  comforted  the  King  not 
half  so  much  as  a whiff  of  smoke  from  the  pipe  of 
one  of  his  Dutch  dragoons.  He  never  went  to  see 
one  of  Mr.  Congreve’s  plays,  though  the  whole  town 
was  talking  of  their  neatness,  and  their  skill,  and 
their  wit.  That  clever  gentleman’s  conquests  on 
the  stage,  and  in  the  social  world  — lording  it  as  he 
did  among  duchesses  and  countesses  — would  have 
weighed  with  King  William  not  so  much  as  the 
buzzing  of  a blue-bottle  fly. 

Yet  Congreve  was  in  his  way  an  important  man 
— immensely  admired  ; Voltaire  said  he  was  the 
best  comedy  writer  England  had  ever  known  ; and 
when  he  came  to  London  this  keen-witted  French- 
man (who  rarely  visited)  went  to  see  Mr.  Congreve 
at  his  rooms  in  the  Strand.  Nothing  was  too  good 
for  Mr.  Congreve ; he  had  patronage  and  great 
gifts ; it  seemed  always  to  be  raining  roses  on  his 
head.  The  work  he  did  was  not  great  work,  but 
it  was  exquisitely  done  ; though,  it  must  be  said, 
there  was  no  preserving  savor  in  it  but  the  art 
of  it.  The  talk  in  his  comedies,  by  its  pliancy, 
grace,  neat  turns,  swiftness  of  repartee,  compares 
with  the  talk  in  most  comedies  as  goldsmith’s 


WILLIAM  CON GI^ EVE, 


271 


work  compares  with  the  heavy  forgings  of  a black- 
smith. It  matches  exquisitely  part  to  part,  and 
runs  as  delicately  as  a hair-spring  on  jewelled  pin- 
ions. 

I gave  my  readers  a bit  of  the  ‘‘Pandora  La- 
ment,” which  Sir  Eichard  Steele  thought  one  of 
the  most  perfect  of  aU  pastoral  compositions.  And 
the  little  whimsey  about  Amoret,  everybody  knows ; 
certainly  it  is  best  known  of  all  he  did  : 

“ Coquet  and  coy  at  once  her  air, 

Both  studied,  tho’  both  seemed  neglected  ; 

Careless  she  is  with  artful  care, 

Affecting  to  seem  unaffected. 

With  skill  her  eyes  dart  every  glance, 

Yet  change  so  soon,  you’d  ne’er  suspect  ’em. 

For  she’d  persuade  they  wound  by  chance, 

Tho’  certain  aim  and  art  direct  them.” 

They  are  very  pretty ; yet  are  you  not  sure  that 
our  wheezing,  phlegmatic,  business-loving,  Dutch 
King  William  would  have  sniffed  contemptuously 
at  the  reading  of  any  such  verselets  ? 


272 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


A Pcbmphleteer. 

A writer,  however,  of  that  time,  of  about  the 
same  age  with  Congreve,  whom  King  William  did 
favor,  and  did  take  at  one  period  into  his  confi- 
dence, — and  one  of  whose  books,  at  least,  you  all 
have  liked  at  some  epoch  of  your  life,  and  thought 
quite  wonderful  and  charming  — I must  tell  you 
more  about.  His  presence  counted  for  nothing  ; he 
was  short,  wiry,  hook-nosed  — not  anyway  elegant ; 
Mr.  Congreve  would  have  scorned  association  with 
him.  He  was  the  son  of  a small  butcher  in  Lon- 
don, and  had  never  much  schooling  ; but  he  was 
quick  of  apprehension,  always  eager  to  inform  him- 
self ; bustling,  shrewd,  inquisitive,  with  abundance 
of  what  we  call  ‘‘  cheek.”  He  never  lacked  simple, 
strong  language  to  teU  just  what  he  thought,  or 
what  he  knew  ; and  he  never  lacked  the  courage  to 
put  his  language  into  print  or  into  speech,  as  the 
case  might  be. 

By  dint  of  his  dogged  perseverance  and  much 
natural  aptitude  he  came  to  know  Latin  and  Span- 
ish and  Italian,  and  could  speak  French,  such  as  it 


A PAMPHLETEER. 


273 


was,  very  fluently.  He  was  well  up  in  geography 
and  history,  and  such  science  as  went  into  the  books 
of  those  days.  He  wrote  sharp,  stinging  pamphlets 
about  whatever  struck  him  as  wrong,  or  as  wanting 
a good  slap,  whether  in  morals,  manners,  or  poli- 
tics. 

He  was  in  trade,  which  took  him  sometimes  into 
France,  Spain,  or  Flanders.  He  could  tell  every- 
one how  to  make  money  and  how  to  conduct  busi- 
ness better  than  he  could  do  either  himself.  He  had 
his  bankruptcies,  his  hidings,  his  compoundings 
with  creditors,  and  his  times  in  prison ; but  he 
came  out  of  all  these  experiences  with  just  as  much 
animation  and  pluck  and  assurance  as  he  carried 
into  them. 

There  was  a time  when  he  was  advertised  as  a 

fugitive,  and  a reward  offered  for  his  apprehension 

— all  due  to  his  sharp  pamphlet- writing ; and  he 

was  apprehended  and  had  his  fines  to  pay,  and 

stood  in  the  pillory ; but  the  street-folk,  with  a 

love  for  his  pluck  and  for  his  trenchant,  homely, 

outspokenness,  garnished  the  pillory  with  flowers 

and  garlands.  It  was  this  power  of  incisive  speech^ 

and  his  capacity  to  win  audience  of  the  street- 
II. -18 


274 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


people,  that  made  King  William  value  his  gifts 
and  put  them  to  service. 

But  I cannot  tell  of  the  half  he  vsrrote.  Now  it 
was  upon  management  of  families ; again  an  E^my 
on  Projects  — from  which  Dr.  Franklin  used  to 
say  he  derived  a great  many  valuable  hints  — then 
upon  a standing  army ; then  upon  the  villainies  of 
stock-jobbery.  What  he  called  poems,  too,  he 
wrote,  with  a harsh  jingle  of  rhymes ; one  specially, 
showing  that — 

“ as  the  world  goes,  and  is  like  to  go,  the  best  way  for 
Ladies  is  to  keep  unmarried,  for  I will  ever  expose,’* 
he  says,  “these  infamous,  impertinent,  cowardly,  censor- 
ious, sauntering  Idle  wretches^  called  Wits  and  Beanx^ 
the  Plague  of  the  nation  and  the  Scandal  of  mankind. 
But,  he  continues,  ‘‘  if  Lesbia  is  sure  she  has  found  a 
man  of  Honor,  Religion  and  Virtue,  I will  never  forbid 
the  Banns : Let  her  love  him  as  much  as  she  pleases, 
and  value  him  as  an  Angel,  and  be  married  to-morrow  if 
she  will.” 

Again,  he  has  a whole  volume  of  Advice  to  Eng- 
lish Tradesmen,  as  to  how  to  manage  their  shops 
and  bargainings ; and  it  gives  one  a curious  notion 
of  what  was  counted  idle  extravagance  in  that 
day  to  read  his  description  of  the  extraordinary 


A PAMPHLETEER. 


275 


and  absurd  expenditure  of  a certain  insane  pastry- 
cook : 

“It  will  hardly  be  believed,”  he  says,  “ in  ages  to  come, 
that  the  fitting  of  his  shop  has  cost  300  pounds  ! I have 
good  authority  for  saying  that  this  spendthrift  has  sash- 
windows  all  of  looking-glass  plate  twelve  inches  by  sixteen 

— two  large  pier  looking-glasses,  and  one  very  large  pier- 
glass  seven  feet  high  ; and  all  the  walls  of  the  shop  are 
lined  up  with  galley  tiles.” 

He  advises  a young  apothecary  who  lias  not  large 
acquaintance  to  hire  a stout  man  to  pound  in  a 
big  mortar  (though  he  may  have  nothing  to  pound) 
all  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  and  all  the  even- 
ing, as  if  he  were  a man  of  great  practice.  Then, 
in  his  Family  Instructor,  he  advises  against  un- 
truth and  all  hypocrisies ; and  he  compresses 
sharp  pamphlets  into  the  shape  of  a leading  article 

— is,  in  fact,  the  first  man  to  design  ‘‘leading  ar- 
ticles,” which  he  puts  into  his  Be  view  or  Indicator, 
in  which  periodicals  he  saves  a corner  for  well- 
spiced  gossip  and  scandal,  to  make  — he  says — the 
“paper  relished  by  housewives.”  He  interviews  all 
the  cut-throats  and  thieves  encountered  in  prison, 
and  tells  stories  of  their  lives.  I think  he  was  the 
first  and  best  of  all  interviewers  ; but  not  the  last ! 


276  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


Fifty  of  these  pages  of  mine  would  scarce  take  in 
the  mere  titles  of  the  books  and  pamphlets  he 
wrote.  His  career  stretched  far  down  throughout 
Queen  Anne’s  days,  and  was  parallel  with  that  of 
many  worthy  men  of  letters,  I shall  have  to  men- 
tion ; yet  he  knew  familiarly  none  of  them.  Swift, 
who  knew  everybody  he  thought  worth  knowing, 
speaks  of  him  as  an  illiterate  fellow,  w^hose  name  he 
has  forgotten ; and  our  pamphleteer  dies  at  last  — 
in  hiding  — poor,  embroiled  with  his  family,  and 
sought  by  very  few  — unless  his  creditors. 

I do  not  suppose  you  have  read  much  that  he 
wrote  except  one  book ; that,  I know  you  have 
read ; and  this  bustling,  bouncing,  inconsistent,  in- 
defatigable, unsuccessful,  earnest  scold  of  a man 
was  named  Daniel  Defoe  ; * and  the  book  you  have 
read  is  Robinson  Crusoe  — loved  by  all  boys 
better  than  any  other  book  ; and  loved  by  all  girls, 
I think,  better  than  any  other  book  — that  has  no 
love  in  it. 


* Daniel  Defoe,  b.  1661,  d.  1731.  Little  is  known  of  his 
very  early  life.  Of  Bohinson  Crusoe  there  have  been  edi- 
tions innumerable.  Of  his  complete  works  no  full  edition 
has  ever  been  published  — probably  never  will  be. 


QUEEN  ANNE,  277 

You  will  wonder,  perhaps,  that  a man  without 
academic  graces  of  speech  should  have  made  a 
book  that  wears  so  and  that  wins  so.  But  it  wears 
and  wins,  because — for  one  thing — it  is  free  from 
any  extraneous  graces  of  rhetoric  ; because  he  was 
not  trying  to  write  a fine  book,  but  only  to  tell  in 
clearest  way  a plain  story.  And  if  you  should  ever 
have  any  story  of  your  own  to  tell,  and  want  to  tell 
it  well,  I advise  you  to  take  Robinson  Crusoe  for 
a model ; if  you  ever  want  to  make  a good  record 
of  any  adventures  of  your  own  by  sea,  or  by  land,  I 
advise  you  to  take  Robinson  Crusoe  for  a model ; 
and  if  you  do,  you  will  not  waste  words  in  paint- 
ing sunsets,  or  in  decorating  storms  and  sea-waves  ; 
but,  without  your  straining,  and  by  the  simple  col- 
orless truth  of  your  language,  the  sunsets  will  show 
their  glow,  and  the  storms  rise  and  roar,  and  the 
waves  dash  and  die  along  the  beach  as  they  do  in 
nature. 


Of  Queen  Anne. 

Though  not  in  great  favor  with  the  courtiers  of 
Queen  Anne,  Defoe  did  serve  her  government  ef- 
fectively upon  the  Commission  in  Edinburgh,  which 


27S 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


brought  about  in  this  Queen’s  time  (and  to  her 
great  honor)  the  legislative  union  of  England  and 
Scotland.  She  came,  you  know,  to  be  called  the 
^'Good  Queen  Anne and  we  must  try  and  get  a 
better  glimpse  of  her  before  we  push  on  with  our 
literary  story.  Royal  duties  brought  more  ripeness 
of  character  than  her  young  days  promised.  I 
have  said  that  she  was  not  so  attractive  personally 
as  her  sister  Mary  ; not  tall,  but  heavy  in  figure  — 
not  unlike  the  present  good  Queen  of  England,  but 
less  active  by  far ; sometimes  dropsical  — gouty, 
too,  and  never  getting  over  a strong  love  for  the 
table.  She  had  great  waves  of  brown  hair  — ring- 
leted and  flowing  over  her  shoulders  ; and  she  had 
an  arm  and  hand  which  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  — who 
painted  her  — declared  to  be  the  finest  in  all  Eng- 
land ; and  whoso  is  curious  in  such  matters  can 
still  see  that  wonderful  hand  and  arm  in  her  por- 
trait at  Windsor.  Another  charm  she  possessed 
was  a singularly  sweet  and  sympathetic  voice ; and 
she  read  the  royal  messages  to  the  high  court  of 
Parliament  with  a music  that  has  never  been  put 
in  them  since.  If  she  had  written  them  herself,  I 
am  afraid  music  would  not  have  saved  them  ; for 


QUEEN  ANNE, 


279 


she  was  not  strong-minded,  and  was  a shallow 
student ; she  would  spell  phonetically,  and  played 
havoc  with  the  tenses.  Nor  was  she  rich  in  con- 
versation, or  full.  Swift — somewhere  in  his  jour- 
nal— makes  merry  with  her  disposition  to  help 
out  — as  so  many  of  us  do  — by  talk  about  the 
weather ; and  there  is  a story  that  when,  after 
King  William’s  death,  the  great  Marquis  of  Nor- 
manby  came  on  a visit  of  sympathy  and  gratula- 
tion  to  the  new  sovereign,  the  Queen,  at  an  awk- 
ward pause,  piped  out,  in  her  sweet  voice  : ‘‘  It’s  a 
fine  day.  Marquis ! ” Whereat  the  courtier,  who 
was  more  full  of  dainty  speech,  said  — in  pretty 
recognition  of  its  being  the  first  day  of  her  reign 
— ‘‘Tour  Majesty  must  allow  me  to  say  that  it’s 
the  finest  day  I ever  saw  in  my  life ! ” But  this 
good  Queen  was  full  of  charities,  always  beloved, 
and  never  failed  to  show  that  best  mark  of  real 
ladyhood  — the  utmost  courtesy  and  kindliness  of 
manner  to  dependants  and  to  her  servants. 


28o 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


An  Irish  Dragoon. 

Among  the  writers  specially  identified  with  this 
Queen’s  reign  was  Sir  Eichard  Steele ; not  a 
grand  man,  or  one  of  large  influence  ; and  yet  one 
so  kindly  by  nature,  and  so  gracious  in  his  speech 
and  writing,  that  the  world  is  not  yet  done  with  par- 
doning, and  loving,  and  pitying  that  elegant  author 
of  the  Taller — though  he  was  an  awful  spend- 
thrift, and  a fashionable  tippler,  and  a creature  of 
always  splendid,  and  always  broken,  promises. 

He  was  Irish  born  ; was  schooled  at  the  Charter- 
house  in  London,  where  he  met  with  that  other 
master  of  delicate  English,  Joseph  Addison  — they 
being  not  far  from  the  same  age  — and  knitting 
a boy  friendship  there  which  withstood  a great 
many  shocks  of  manhood.  They  were  together  at 
Oxford,  too,  but  not  long  ; for  Steele,  somehow, 
slipped  College  early  and  became  a trooper,  and 
learned  all  the  ways  of  the  fast  fellows  of  the  town. 

* Ricliard  Steele,  b.  1672  ; d.  1729.  He  was  born  hi 
Dublin,  and  died  on  bis  wife’s  estate  at  Llanngunnor,  near 
Caermarthen,  in  Wales. 


STEELE. 


281 


With  such  a training  — on  the  road  to  which  his 
Irish  blood  led  him  with  great  jollity  — one  would 
hardly  have  looked  to  him  for  any  early  talk 
about  the  life  of  a true  Christian  Hero.  But  he 
did  write  a book  so  entitled,  in  those  wild  young 
days,  as  a sort  of  kedge  anchor,  he  says,  whereby 
he  might  haul  out  from  the  shoals  of  the  wicked 
town,  and  indulge  in  a sort  of  contemplative  piety. 
It  was  and  is  a very  good  little  book  ; ^ but  it  did 
not  hold  a bit,  as  an  anchor.  And  when  he  came 
to  be  joked  about  his  Christian  Heroship,  he  wrote 
plays  (perhaps  to  make  averages  good)  more  moral 
and  cleanly  than  those  of  Etherege  or  Wycherley 
— with  bright  things  in  them ; but  not  enough 
of  such,  or  of  orderly  proprieties,  to  keep  them 
popular.  Of  course,  this  fun-loving,  dusky,  good- 
hearted,  broad-shouldered  Irish  trooper  falls  in 
love  easily  ; marries,  too,  of  a sudden,  some  West 
Indian  lady,  who  dies  within  a year,  leaving  him 
a Barbadoes  estate  — said  to  be  large — does  look 

The  Christian  Hero  appeared  in  1701  ; and  it  was  in  the 
same  year  that  Steele’s  first  play  of  “The  Funeral”  was 
acted  at  Drury  Lane.  “ The  Lying  Lover  ” appeared  in 
1703,  and  “ The  Tender  Husband  ” in  1705. 


282 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


large  to  Captain  Steele  through  his  cups  — but 
which  gives  greater  anxieties  than  profits,  and  is 
a sort  of  castle  in  Spain  all  through  his  life.  With 
almost  incredible  despatch  — after  this  affliction  — 
he  is  in  love  again  ; this  time  with  the  only  daugh- 
ter of  a rich  Welsh  lady.  This  is  his  famous 
Prue,  who  plays  the  coquette  with  him  for  a while ; 
but  writes  privily  to  her  anxious  mamma  that  she 
‘‘can  never,  never  love  another;”  that  “he  is  not 
high  — nor  rich  — but  so  dutiful ; and  for  his 
morals  and  understanding  [she  says]  I refer  you 
to  his  Christian  Hero'' 

Steele’s  marriage  comes  of  it  — a marriage  whose 
ups  and  downs,  and  lights  and  shadows  have  curi- 
ous and  very  graphic  illustration  in  the  storm  of 
notelets  which  he  wrote  to  his  wife  — on  bill-heads, 
perfumed  paper,  tavern  reckonings  — all,  singularly 
enough,  in  existence  now,  and  carefully  kept  in  the 
Library  of  the  British  Museum. 

Here  is  a part  of  one,  written  just  before  his  mar- 
riage : 

“Madam,  it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  World  to  he  in 
Love,  and  yet  attend  Business.  As  for  me  all  that  speak  to 
me  find  me  out.  ...  A gentleman  ask'd  me  this  morn- 


• STEELE. 


283 


ing  what  news  from  Lisbon,  and  I answered,  ‘ She’s  exquh 
sitely  handsome.  ” Here's  another  — after  marriage : 
**  Dear  Prue,  I enclose  two  guineas,  and  will  come  liome  ex- 
actly at  seven.  Yrs  tenderly.”  And  again:  ‘‘Dear  Prue, 
I enclose  five  guineas,  but  cannot  come  home  to  dinner. 
Dear  little  woman,  take  care  of  thyself,  and  eat  and  drink 
cheerfully.”  Yet  again:  “Dear  Prue,  if  you  do  not  hear 
of  me  before  three  to-morrow,  believe  that  I am  too  [tipsy] 
to  obey  your  orders ; but,  however,  know  me  to  be  your 
most  affectionate,  faithful  husband.” 

It  is  more  promising  for  a man  to  speak  of  his 
own  tippling  than  to  have  others  speak  of  it ; nor 
was  this  writer’s  sinning  in  that  way  probably  be- 
yond the  average  in  his  time.  But  he  was  of  that 
mercurial  temperament  which  took  wine  straight 
to  the  brain ; and  so  was  always  at  bad  odds  with 
those  men  of  better  digestion  (such  as  Swift  and 
Addison)  who  were  only  tickled  eflfusively  with 
such  bouts  as  lifted  the  hilarious  Captain  Steele 
into  a noisy  effervescence. 

There  are  better  and  worse  letters  than  those  I 
have  read ; but  never  any  lack  of  averment  that  he 
enjoys  most  of  anything  in  life  his  wife’s  delightful 
presence  — but  can’t  get  home,  really  cannot ; some 
excellent  fellows  have  come  in,  or  he  is  at  the  tav- 
ern— business  is  important;  and  she  is  always  his 


284 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  &-  KINGS. 


charming  Prue  ; and  always  he  twists  a little  wordy 
aureole  of  praise  about  her  head  or  her  curls.  I 
suppose  she  took  a deal  of  comfort  out  of  his  ten- 
der adjectives ; but  I think  she  learned  early  not  to 
sit  up  for  him,  and  got  over  that  married  woe  with 
great  alacrity.  There  is  evidence  that  she  loved 
him  throughout ; and  other  evidence  that  she  gave 
him  some  moral  fisticuffs  — when  he  did  get  home 
— which  made  his  next  stay  at  the  tavern  easier  and 
more  defensible. 

But  he  loved  his  Prue,  in  his  way,  all  her  life 
through,  and  showed  a beautiful  fondness  for  his 
children.  In  that  budget  of  notelets  I spoke  of 
(and  which  the  wife  so  carefully  cherished),  are 
some  charming  ones  to  his  children  : thus  he  writes 
to  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  whose  younger  sister, 
Mary,  has  just  begun  to  put  her  initials,  M.  S.,  to 
messages  of  love  to  him  : 

“ Tell  her  I am  delighted  : tell  her  how  many  fine  things 
those  two  letters  stand  for  when  she  writes  them  : M,  8, 
is  mUk  and  sugar  ; mirth  and  safety  ; musick  and  songs ; 
meat  and  sauce^  as  well  as  Molly  and  SpoU  and  Mary  and 
Steele.  You  see  I take  pleasure  in  conversing  with  you  by 
prattling  anything  to  divert  you.  Yr  aff.  father.” 


STEELE.  28s 

But  you  must  not  think  Steele  was  a man  of  no 
importance  save  in  his  own  family.  His  friends 
counted  by  scores  and  hundreds ; he  had  warm 
patrons  among  the  chiefest  men  of  the  time  ; had 
political  preferment  and  places  of  trust  and  profit, 
far  better  than  his  old  captaincy  ; could  have  lived 
in  handsome  style  and  without  anxieties,  if  his 
reckless  kindnesses  and  convivialities  had  not  made 
him  improvident. 

Steele^s  Literary  Qualities. 

Nor  must  we  forget  the  work  by  which  he  is 
chiefly  known,  I mean  his  establishment  of  the 
Taller  — the  forerunner  of  all  those  delightful  es- 
says which  went  to  the  making  of  the  Spectator  and 
the  Guardian  ; these  latter  having  the  more  credit 
for  their  dignity  and  wise  reticence,  but  the  Tatler 
being  more  vivacious,  and  quite  as  witty.  Addison 
came  to  the  help  of  Steele  in  the  Tatler^  and  Steele, 
afterward  joined  forces  with  Addison  in  the  Spec- 
tator. I happen  to  be  the  owner  of  a very  old 
edition  of  these  latter  essays,  in  whose  “Table  of 
Contents  ” some  staid  critic  of  the  last  generation 


286 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


has  written  his  (or  her)  comments  on  the  various 
topics  discussed ; and  I find  against  the  papers  of 
Addison,  such  notes  as — "Hnsiructive,  sound,  ju- 
dicious ; ” and  against  those  of  Steele,  I am  soitj 
to  say,  such  words  as  flighty,  light,  witty,  graceful, 
ivorthlessf  and  I am  inclined  to  think  the  criticisms 
are  pretty  well  borne  out  by  the  papers  ; but  if 
flighty  and  light,  he  was  not  unwholesome  ; and 
he  did  not  always  carry  the  rollicking  ways  of  the 
tavern  into  the  little  piquant  journalism,  where  the 
grave  and  excellent  Mr.  Addison  presided  with  him. 
Nay,  there  are  better  things  yet  to  be  said  of  him. 
He  argued  against  the  sin  and  folly  of  duelling 
with  a force  and  pungency  that  went  largely  to  stay 
that  evil ; and  he  never  touches  a religious  topic 
that  his  manner  does  not  take  on  an  awe  and  a 
respect  which  belongs  to  the  early  pages  of  the 
Christian  Hero.  There  are  touches  of  pathos,  too, 
in  his  writing,  quite  un  match  able  ; but  straight 
and  quick  upon  these  you  are  apt  to  catch  sound 
of  the  jingling  spurs  of  the  captain  of  dra- 
goons. Thus,  in  that  often  quoted  allusion  to  his 
father’s  death  (which  happened  in  his  boyhood), 
lie  says : 


STEELE. 


2«7 

“I  went  into  the  room  where  his  body  lay,  and  my 
mother  sat  weeping  alone  by  it.  I had  my  battledore  in 
my  hand,  and  fell  a beating  the  coffin,  and  calling  ‘Papa.’ 
. . . My  mother  catched  me  in  her  arms,  and  almost 

smothered  me  in  her  embraces,  and  told  me,  in  a flood  of 
tears,  ‘ Papa  could  not  hear  me,  and  would  play  with  me  no 
more.’  ” 

This  is  on  page  364  of  the  Taller,  and  on  page 
365  he  says  : A large  train  of  disasters  were  com- 
ing into  my  memory,  when  my  servant  knocked  at 
my  closet  door,  and  interrupted  me  with  a letter, 
attended  with  a hamper  of  wine,  of  the  same  sort 
with  that  which  is  to  be  put  to  sale  on  Thursday 
next,  at  Garraway’s  coffee-house.”  And  he  sends 
for  three  of  his  friends  — which  was  so  like  him  ! 

So  he  goes  through  life  — a kindly,  good-hearted, 
tender,  intractable,  winning  fellow  ; talking,  odd- 
whiles,  piously  — spending  freely — drinking  fear- 
lessly — loving  widely  — writing  archly,  wittily, 
charmingly. 

We  have  a characteristic  glimpse  of  him  in  his 
later  years  — for  he  lived  far  down  into  the  days  of 
the  Georges  (one  of  whom  gave  him  his  knight- 
hood and  title)  — when  he  is  palsied,  at  his  charm- 
ing country  home  in  Wales,  and  totters  out  to 


288 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  6-  KINGS. 


see  tlie  village  girls  dance  upon  the  green,  and 
insists  upon  sending  off  to  buy  a new  gown  for 
the  best  dancer ; this  was  so  like  him  ! And  it 
would  have  been  like  him  to  carry  his  palsied 
steps  straight  thereafter  to  the  grave  where  his 
Prue  and  the  memory  of  aU  his  married  joys  and 
hopes  lay  sleeping. 

Josejph  Addison. 

Addison’s  character  was,  in  a measure,  the  com- 
plement of  Steele’s.  He  was  coy,  dignified,  reti- 
cent— not  given  to  easy  familiarities  at  sight  — 
nor  greatly  prone  to  over-fondling.  He  was  the 
son  of  an  English  rector  down  in  Wiltshire ; was 
born  in  a cottage  still  standing  in  Milston  — a few 
miles  north  of  Salisbury.  He  was  a Charter-house 
boy  and  Oxford  man;  had  great  repute  there  as 
scholar  — specially  as  Latinist  — became  a Fellow 
— had  great  Whig  friends,  who,  somehow,  secured 
him  a pension,  with  which  he  set  out  upon  Euro- 
pean travel ; and  he  wrote  about  what  he  saw  in 
Italy,  and  other  parts,  in  a way  that  is  fresh  and 
readable  now.  He  was  a year  or  two  younger  than 


ADDISON. 


289 


Congreve,  and  a few  weeks*  only  younger  than 
Steele  ; nine  years  younger  than  De  Foe,  of  whom 
it  is  probable  he  never  knew  or  cared  to  know. 

Very  early  in  his  career  Addison  had  the  aid  of 
Government  friends:  his  dignity  of  carriage  gave 
them  assurance  ; his  reticence  forbade  fear  of  bab- 
bling ; his  elegant  pen  gave  hope  of  good  service  ; 
and  he  came  to  high  political  task-work — first,  in 
those  famous  verses  where  he  likens  the  fighting 
hero,  Marlborough  — then  fresh  from  Blenheim  — 
to  the  angel,  who, 

“ by  Divine  command, 

With  rising  tempests  shakes  a guilty  land. 

And  pleased  th’  Almighty’s  orders  to  perform, 

Rides  in  the  whirlwind  and  directs  the  storm.” 

That  poem  took  him  out  from  scholarly  obscur- 
ity, and  set  him  well  afoot  in  the  waiting-rooms 
of  statesmen.  Poetry,  however,  was  not  to  be  his 
office  ; though,  some  years  after,  he  did  win  the 
town  by  the  academic  beauties  of  his  tragedy  of 

Cato  ” — the  memory  of  which  has  come  bobbing 

* I take  the  careful  reckoning  of  Mr.  Dobson  in  hia  Life 
of  Steele y 1886. 

IT.— 19 


290 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


down  over  school  - benches,  by  the  ‘‘  Speech  of 
Sempronius,”  to  days  some  of  us  remember  — 

“ My  voice  is  still  for  war  I 

Gods,  can  a Roman  Senate  long  debate 
Wbich  of  the  two  to  cboose  — slavery  or  death ! 

I suppose  that  speech  may  have  slipped  out  of 
modern  reader-books ; but  it  used  to  make  one  of 
the  stock  declamations,  on  which  ambitious  school- 
boys of  my  time  spent  great  floods  of  fervid  elo- 
cution. 

Addison  wrote  somewhat,  as  I have  said,  for 
Steele’s  first  periodic  venture  in  the  Taller,  at- 
tracted by  its  opportunities  and  the  graces  of  it  ; 
and  they  together  plotted  and  carried  into  execu- 
tion the  publication  of  the  Spectator.  I trust  that 
its  quiet  elegance  has  not  altogether  fallen  away 
from  the  knowledge  of  this  generation  of  young 
people.  Dr.  Johnson,  you  know,  said  of  its  Addi- 
son papers,  that  whoever  would  write  English  well 
should  give  his  days  and  nights  to  their  perusal. 
Yet  such  a journal  could  and  would  never  succeed 
now : it  does  not  deal  with  questions  of  large 
and  vital  interest  ; its  sentences  do  not  crackle 


ROGER  DE  COVERLEY. 


291 


and  blaze  with  the  heat  we  look  for  in  the 
preachments  of  our  time.  Its  leisurely  discourse 
— placid  as  summer  brooks  — would  beguile  us  to 
sleep.  A ream  of  old  Spectators  discussing  propri- 
eties and  modesties  w^ould  not  put  one  of  our  dar- 
ing ball-room  belles  to  the  blush.  The  talk  of 
these  old  gentlemen  about  the  minor  morals  were 
too  mild,  perhaps  too  merciful ; yet  it  is  well  to 
know  of  them ; and  one  can  go  to  a great  many 
worse  quarters  than  the  Spectator,  even  now,  for 
proper  hints  about  etiquette,  manners,  and  social 
proprieties. 


Sir  Roger  De  Coverley. 

Whatever  other  writings  of  these  gallant  gentle- 
men and  teachers  of  Queen  Anne’s  time  the  reader 
may  have  upon  his  shelves,  he  cannot  do  better 
than  equip  them  with  that  little  story  (excerpted 
from  the  Spectator)  of  ‘‘Sir  Roger  De  Coverley.” 
No  truer  or  more  winning  picture  of  worthy  old 
English  knighthood  can  you  find  anywhere  in  liter- 
ature ; nowhere  such  a tender  twilight  color  falling 
through  books  upon  old  English  country  homes. 
Those  papers  made  the  scaffolding  by  which  our 


292  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS, 

own  Irving  built  up  his  best  stories  about  English 
country  homesteads,  and  English  revels  of  Christ- 
mas ; and  the  De  Coverley  echoes  sound  sweetly 
and  surely  all  up  and  down  the  pages  of  Brace- 
bridge  Hall. 

The  character  of  Sir  Eoger  will  live  forever  — so 
gracious — so  courteous  — so  dignified — so  gentle  : 
his  servants  love  him,  and  his  dogs,  and  his  white 
gelding. 

“It  being  a cold  day,’’  says  his  old  butler,  “when  he 
made  his  will,  he  left  for  mourning  to  every  man  in  the 
parish  a great  frieze  coat,  and  to  every  woman  a black  rid- 
ing-hood. Captain  Sentry  showed  great  kindnesses  to  the 
old  house-dog  my  master  was  so  fond  of.  It  would  have 
gone  to  your  heart  to  have  heard  the  moans  the  dumb  creat- 
ure made  on  the  day  of  my  master’s  death.  He  has  never 
joyed  himself  since — no  more  has  any  of  us.” 

Yet  there  were  plenty  of  folks  who  sneered  at 
these  papers  even  then  — as  small  — not  worthy 
of  notice.  That  great,  bustling,  slashing,  literary 
giant.  Dean  Swift,  says  to  Mistress  Hester  John- 
son, “ Do  you  read  the  Spectators  ? I never  do ; 
they  never  come  in  my  way.  They  say  abun- 
dance of  them  are  very  pretty.”  “Very  pretty!” 
a vast  many  satiric  shots  have  been  fired  off  to 


ROGER  DE  COVERLEY. 


293 


that  tune.  And  yet  Swift  and  Addison  had  been 
as  friendly  as  two  men  so  utterly  unlike  could  be. 

To  complete  the  De  Coverley  picture,  and  give  it 
relish  in  the  boudoirs  of  the  time,  the  authors  paint 
the  old  knight  in  love  — delicately,  but  deeply  and 
wofully  in  love  — with  a certain  unnamed  widow 
living  near  him,  and  whose  country  house  overlooks 
the  park  of  the  De  Coverley  estate. 

“ Oh,  the  many  moonlight  nights  that  I have  walked  by 
myself,  and  thought  on  the  widow,  by  the  music  of  the 
nightingales ! ” 

This  sounds  like  Steele.  And  the  old  knight 
leaves  to  her 

“ Whom  he  has  loved  for  forty  years,  a pearl  necklace 
that  was  his  mother’s,  and  a couple  of  silver  bracelets  set 
with  jewels.” 

This  episode  has  an  added  interest,  because  about 
those  times  the  dignified  and  coy  Mr.  Addison  was 
very  much  bent  upon  marrying  the  elegant  Lady 
Warwick,  whose  son  had  been  correspondent  — 
perhaps  pupil  of  his.  He  did  not  bounce  into 
maiTiage  — like  Steele  — with  his  whole  heart  in 
his  eyes  and  his  speech  ; it  was  a long  pursuit, 


294  LANDS,  LETTERS,  RINGS. 

and  liad  its  doubtful  stages ; six  years  before  the 
affair  really  came  about,  he  used  to  write  to  the 
Warwick  lad  about  the  tom-tits,  and  the  robin- 
redbreasts,  and  their  pretty  nests,  and  the  night- 
ingales. But  Addison,  more  or  less  fortunate  than 
Sir  Koger,  does  win  the  widow’s  hand,  and  has  a 
sorry  time  of  it  with  her.  She  never  forgets  to 
look  a little  down  upon  him,  and  he  never  forgets 
a keen  knowledge  of  it. 

He  has  the  liberty,  however,  after  his  marriage 
— with  certain  limitations — of  a great  fine  home  at 
Holland  House,  which  is  one  of  the  few  old  country 
houses  still  standing  in  London,  in  the  midst  of  the 
gardens,  where  Addison  used  to  walk,  in  preference 
to  my  Lady’s  chamber.  His  habits  were  to  study 
of  a morning  — dine  at  a tavern  ; then  to  Button’s 
coffee-house,  near  to  Covent  Garden,  for  a meet 
with  his  cronies  ; and  afterward  — when  the  spectre 
of  marriage  was  real  to  him  — to  the  tavern  again, 
and  to  heavier  draughts  than  he  was  wont  to  take 
in  his  young  days. 

Pope  said  he  was  charming  in  his  talk  ; but  never 
so  in  mixed  company  ; never  when  the  auditors 
were  so  new  or  so  many  as  to  rouse  his  self-con- 


ADDISON. 


295 


sciousness ; this  tied  his  tongue  ; but  with  one  or 
two  he  knew  well,  the  stream  of  the  Spectator's  talk 
flowed  as  limpidly  as  from  his  pen. 

He  was  not  a great  student ; Bentley  would  have 
laughed  at  hearing  him  called  so.  But  he  could 
use  the  learning  he  had  with  rare  deftness,  and 
make  more  out  of  a page  of  the  ancients  than 
Bentley  could  make  out  of  a volume.  His  graces 
of  speech,  and  aptitude  for  using  a chance  nugget 
of  knowledge,  made  him  subject  of  sneer  from 
those  who  studied  hard  and  long.  A man  who 
beats  his  brains  against  books  everlastingly,  with- 
out great  conquests,  is  apt  to  think  lightly  of  the 
gifts  of  one  like  Addison,  who  by  mere  impact  gets 
a gracious  send-off  into  elegant  talk. 

If  one  has  read  nothing  else  of  Addison’s,  I think 
he  may  read  with  profit  the  Vision  of  Mirza.” 
That,  too,  used  to  be  one  of  the  jewels  in  the  an- 
cient reader-books,  and  had  so  many  of  the  graces 
of  a story,  that  the  book  — my  book  at  least  — used 
to  fall  open  of  itself  on  those  pages  where  began 
the  wonderful  vision  in  the  Valley  of  Bagdad. 

Though  more  years  have  passed  since  my  read- 
ing of  it  than  I dare  tell,  yet  at  the  bare  men- 


296  LANDS,  LETTERS,  <Sr*  KINGS, 

tion  of  the  name  I seem  to  see  the  great  clouds  of 
mist  which  gather  on  the  hither  and  the  thither 
sides  of  the  valley  : I see  the  haunting  Genius  in 
the  costume  of  a shepherd,  who  from  his  little  mu- 
sical instrument  makes  sounds  that  are  exceeding 
sweet. 

Then  I seem  to  see  the  prodigious  tide  of  water 
rolling  through  the  valley,  and  the  long  bridge 
with  the  crumbling  arches  stretching  athwart  the 
stream,  and  the  throngs  of  people  crowding  over, 
and  falling  and  slipping  into  the  angry  tide  — 
which  is  the  tide  of  death  ; I see  that  the  larger 
number  fall  through  into  the  waters,  when  they 
have  scarce  passed  over  a single  arch  of  the  bridge. 
But  whatever  may  befall,  always  the  throng  is 
pressing  on,  and  always  the  thousands  are  drop- 
ping away  and  disappearing  in  the  gulf  that 
sweeps  below.  I see  that,  though  some  few  hobble 
along  painfully  upon  the  furthermost  and  half- 
broken  arches  that  stand  in  the  flood,  not  one  of 
all  the  myriads  passes  over  in  safety ; and  I be- 
hold again  (with  Mirza)  that  beyond  — far  beyond, 
where  the  clouds  of  mist  have  lifted — lies  a stretch 
of  placid  water,  with  islands  covered  with  fruits 


ADDISON. 


297 


and  flowers,  and  a thousand  little  shining  seas 
run  in  and  out  among  these  Islands  of  the  Blessed. 
And  when  I look  the  other  way,  to  see  what  may 
lie  under  the  other  and  darker  clouds  of  mist,  lo  ! 
the  shepherd  who  has  conjured  the  Vision  is  gone ; 
and  instead  of  the  rolling  tide,  the  arched  bridge, 
the  crowding  myriads,  I see  nothing  but  the  long, 
hollow  Valley  of  Bagdad,  with  oxen,  sheep,  and 
camels  grazing  upon  the  sides  of  it.  It  seemed 
to  me,  fifty  years  ago,  that  a man  who  could  make 
such  visions  appear,  ought  to  keep  on  making 
them  appear,  all  his  life  long. 

I have  said  nothing  of  the  political  life  of 
Addison ; there  are  no  high  lights  in  it  that  send 
their  flashes  down  to  us.  He  held  places,  indeed, 
of  much  consideration;  his  aptitudes,  his  courte- 
sies, his  discretion,  his  sagacities  always  won  re- 
spect ; but  he  was  never  a force  in  politics ; the 
only  time  he  attempted  parliamentary  speaking 
he  broke  down ; but  with  a pen  in  his  hand 
he  never  broke  down  until  failing  health  and 
latter-day  anxieties  of  many  sorts  shook  his  power. 
I have  already  hinted  at  the  probable  infelicities  of 
his  late  and  distinguished  marriage  ; whatever  else 


298  LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 

may  be  true  of  it  (and  authorities  are  conflicting), 
it  certainly  did  not  bring  access  of  youth  or  am- 
bition or  joyousness. 

In  his  later  years,  too,  there  came  a quarrel  with 
his  old  friend  Steele  — cutting  more  deeply  into 
the  heart  of  this  reticent  man  than  it  could  cut 
into  the  much-scarified  heart  of  that  impression- 
ist, the  author  of  the  Taller ; there  were  stories, 
too,  pretty  well  supported,  that  Addison  in  those 
last  weary  days  of  his  — feeble  and  asthmatic  — 
drank  over-freely,  to  spur  his  jaded  mind  up  to  a 
level  with  the  talk  of  sympathizing  friends. 

Pope,  too,  in  those  times,  had  possibly  aggra- 
vated the  quiet,  calm  essayist,  with  the  sting  of 
his  splendid  but  scorpion  pen  ; * and  all  accounts 
assure  us  that  Addison  (though  under  fifty)  did 
give  a most  kindly  welcome  to  death.  The  story 
told  by  Young,  and  repeated  by  Dr.  Johnson,  of 
his  summoning  young  Warwick  to  see  how  a 
Christian  could  die,  is  very  likely  apocryphal.  It 
was  not  like  him  ; this  modest  philosopher  never 
made  himself  an  exemplar  of  the  virtues.  We 

* It  is,  however,  seriously  to  be  doubted  if  Addison  ever 
saw  the  “ Atticus  ” satire. 


ADDISON. 


299 


know,  however,  that  he  died  calmly  and  tranquilly. 
Who  can  hope  for  more  ? 

Not  many  legacies  have  come  down  to  us  from 
those  days  of  Queen  Anno  which  are  worthier  than 
his ; and  all  owe  gratitude  to  him  for  at  least  one 
shining  page  in  all  our  hymnals : it  will  keep  the 
name  of  Addison  among  the  stars. 

The  spacious  firmament  on  high, 

With  all  the  blue  ethereal  sky, 

And  spangled  heavens,  a shining  frame, 

Their  great  Original  proclaim. 

Th’  unwearied  sun,  from  day  to  day, 

Does  his  Creator's  power  display, 

And  publishes  to  every  land 
The  work  of  an  Almighty  hand. 

“ Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail, 

The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale  ; 

And,  nightly,  to  the  listening  earth. 

Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth  ; 

Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 

And  all  the  planets  in  their  turn, 

Confirm  the  tidings  as  they  roll, 

And  spread  the  truth  from  pole  to  pole.'^ 


CHAPTER  Vm. 


IN  our  last  talk  we  had  an  opening  skirmish  with 
a group  of  royal  people  ; we  saw  James  H. 
flitting  away  ignominiously  from  a throne  he  could 
not  fill  or  hold  ; we  saw  that  rough  fighter,  the 
opinionated  William  HI.,  coming  to  his  honors  — 
holding  hard,  and  with  gauntleted  hand,  his  amia- 
ble consort,  Queen  Mary.  I spoke  of  the  relation- 
ship of  these  two  ; also  had  some  fore-words  about 
Mary’s  sister,  the  future  Queen  Anne,  and  about 
the  death  of  her  boy,  the  little  Duke  of  Gloucester. 

I had  something  to  say  of  that  easy  and  artful 
poet,  Matthew  Prior,  who  smartly  wrote  his  way, 
by  judicious  panegyrics  and  well-metred  song,  from 
humble  station  to  that  of  ambassador  at  the  court 
of  France.  We  had  a taste  of  the  elegant  Con- 
greve, and  said  much  of  that  bouncer  of  a man 
Daniel  De  Foe  ; the  character  of  this  latter  we  can- 


DEATH  OF  WILLIAM  III. 


301 


not  greatly  esteem — but  when  can  we  cease  to  ad- 
mire the  talent  that  gave  to  us  the  story  of  B,6b^ 
inson  Cr  usoe  ? 

Then  I spoke  to  you  of  Sir  Eichard  Steele  — poor 
Steele ! poor  Prue ! And  I spoke  also  of  his 
friend  Addison,  the  courtly,  the  reticent,  the  grace- 
ful, and  the  good.  All  of  these  men  outlived  Will- 
iam and  Mary  ; all  of  them  shone  — in  their  several 
ways  — through  the  days  of  Queen  Anne. 


Royal  Griefs  and  Friends. 

Mary,  consort  of  William  lH.,  died  some  six 
years  before  the  close  of  the  century  ; she  was  hon- 
estly mourned  for  by  the  nation  ; and  I cited  some 
of  the  tender  music  which  belonged  to  certain  poe- 
tic lamentations  at  the  going  off  of  the  gentle 
Queen.  The  little  boy  prince,  Gloucester,  pre- 
sumptive heir  to  the  throne,  died  in  1700  (so  did 
John  Dryden  and  Sir  William  Temple).  Scarce 
two  years  thereafter  and  William  IIL  — who  was 
invalided  in  his  latter  days,  and  took  frequent  out- 
of-door  exercise  — was  thrown  from  his  horse  in 
passing  over  the  roads  — not  so  smooth  as  now  — 


302 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  &r-  KINGS. 


between  Hampton  Court  and  Kensington.  There 
was  some  bone-breakage  and  bruises,  which,  like  a 
good  soldier,  he  made  light  of.  In  the  enforced 
confinement  that  followed,  he  struggled  bravely  to 
fulfil  royal  duties  ; but  within  a fortnight,  as  he 
listened  to  Albemarle,  who  brought  news  about  af- 
fairs in  Holland,  it  was  observed  that  his  eyes  wan- 
dered, and  his  only  comment  — whose  comments 
had  always  been  like  hammer-strokes  — was,  ‘‘  I’m 
drawing  to  the  end.”  Two  days  after  he  died. 

Then  the  palace  doors  opened  for  that  good,” 
and  certainly  weak.  Queen  Anne,  whose  name  is  so 
intimately  associated  with  what  is  called  the  Au- 
gustan age”  of  English  letters,  and  whose  personal 
characteristics  have  already  been  subjects  of  men- 
tion. She  was  hardly  recovered  from  her  grief  at 
the  death  of  her  prince-boy,  and  was  supported  at 
her  advent  upon  royalty  by  that  conspicuous  friend 
of  her  girl  years  and  constant  associate,  Sarah, 
Duchess  of  Marlborough.  It  would  be  hard  to 

* Je  tire  mrs  ma  finR  Smollett  (Book  I.,  cliap.  vi.); 
not  a strong  authority  in  most  matters,  but  — from  his  pro- 
fession of  medicine  — an  apt  one  to  ferret  out  actual  details 
in  respect  to  royal  illness. 


THE  MARLBOROUGHS, 


303 


reach  any  proper  understanding  of  social  and  court 
influences  in  Anne’s  time,  without  bringing  into 
Tiew  the  sharp  qualities  of  this  First  Lady  of  her 
Chamber.  Very  few  historians  have  a good  word 
to  say  for  her.  She  was  the  wife  of  that  illustrious 
general,  John  of  Marlborough,  whom  we  all  asso- 
ciate with  his  important  victories  of  Blenheim  and 
of  Kamillies ; and  in  whose  honor  was  erected  the 
great  memorial  column  in  the  Park  of  Woodstock, 
where  every  American  traveller  should  go  to  see 
remnants  of  an  old  royal  forest,  and  to  see  also  the 
brilliant  palace  of  Blenheim,  with  its  splendid 
trophies,  all  given  by  the  nation  — at  the  warm 
urgence  of  Queen  Anne  — in  honor  of  the  conquer- 
ing general. 

You  know  the  character  of  Marlborough — ele- 
gant, selfish,  politic,  treacherous  betimes,  brave, 
greedy,  sagacious,  and  avaricious  to  the  last  degree. 
He  made  a great  figure  in  William’s  time,  and  still 
greater  in  Anne’s  reign ; his  Duchess,  too,  figured 
conspicuously  in  her  court.  She  was  as  enter- 
prising as  the  Duke,  and  as  money-loving  — having 
smiles  and  frowns  and  tears  at  command,  by 
which  she  wheedled  or  swayed  whom  she  would. 


304 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


She  did  not  believe  in  charities  that  went  beyond 
the  house  of  Marlborough  ; in  fact,  this  ancestress 
of  the  Churchills  was  reckoned  by  most  as  a harpy 
and  an  elegant  vampire.  Never  a Queen  was  so 
beleaguered  with  such  a friend  ; she  was  keeper  of 
the  privy  purse,  and  Anne  found  it  hard  (as  current 
stories  ran)  to  get  money  from  her  for  her  private 
charities ; hard,  indeed,  to  dispose  of  her  cast-off 
silken  robes  as  she  desired.  Why,  you  ask,  did 
she  not  blaze  up  into  a flame  of  anger  and  of  re- 
solve, and  bid  the  Duchess,  once  for  all,  begone  ? 
Why  are  some  women  born  weak  and  patient  of  the 
chains  that  bind  them  ? And  why  are  others  born 
with  a cold,  imperious  disdain  and  power  that  tells 
on  weaklings,  and  makes  the  space  all  round  them 
glitter  with  their  sovereignty  ? 

When  this  Sarah  of  Marlborough  was  first  in 
waiting  upon  the  Princess  Anne,  neither  Duke  nor 
Duchess  (without  titles  then)  could  count  enough 
moneys  between  them  to  keep  a private  carriage 
for  their  service ; and  before  the  Duke  died  their 
joint  revenues  amounted  to  £94,000  per  annum. 

Then  the  great  park  at  Woodstock  became  ducal 
property.  I have  said  it  was  richly  worth  visiting  ; 


BLENHEIM  PALACE.  305 

its  encircKng  wall  is  twelve  miles  in  length ; the 
oaks  are  magnificent ; the  artificial  waters  skirt 
gardens  and  shrubberies  that  extend  over  three 
hundred  acres ; the  grass  is  velvety ; the  fallow 
deer  are  in  troops  of  hundreds.  And  one  must  re- 
member, in  visiting  the  locality,  that  there  stood 
the  ancient  and  renowned  royal  mansion  of  Henry 
IL  — that  there  was  born  the  Black  Prince — and, 
very  probably,  Chaucer  may  have  wandered  there- 
about, and  studied  the  ‘^daisies  white,”  and  list- 
ened to  the  whirring  of  the  pheasants  — a wood- 
music  one  may  hear  now  in  all  the  remoter 
alleys. 

How  many  hundred  thousands  were  expended 
upon  the  new  Blenheim  palace,  built  in  Anne’s  time, 
I will  not  undertake  to  compute.  The  paintings 
gathered  in  it  — spoils  of  the  great  Duke’s  mil- 
itary marches  — interest  everyone  ; but  the  palace 
is  as  cold  and  stately  and  unhome-like  and  unlove^ 
able  as  was  the  Duchess  herself. 

11.^20 


3o6  lands,  letters,  KINGS. 


Builders  and  Streets. 

Sir  John  Vanbrugh  * was  the  architect  of  Blen- 
heim, and  you  will  recognize  his  name  as  that  of 
one  of  the  popular  comedy  writers  of  Queen  Anne’s 
time,  who  not  only  wrote  plays,  but  ran  a theatre 
which  he  built  at  the  Hay  market.  It  was  not  so 
successful  as  the  more  famous  one  which  stands 
thereabout  now ; the  poor  architect,  too,  had  a 
good  many  buffets  from  the  stinging  Duchess  of 
Marlborough  ; and  some  stings  besides  from  Swift’s 
waspish  pen,  which  the  amiable  Duchess  did  not 
allow  him  to  forget. 

Another  architect  of  these  times,  better  worth 
our  remembering — for  his  constructive  abilities  — 
was  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  who  designed  some 
forty  of  the  church-spires  now  standing  in  London  ; 
and  he  also  superintended  the  construction  of  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  Paul’s,  which  had  been  steadily 
growing  since  a date  not  long  after  the  great  fire 

* Sir  John  Vanbrugh,  b.  (about)  1666  ; d.  1726.  His  com- 
edies were  better  thought  of  than  liis  buildings,  both  in 
his  own  day  and  in  ours. 


KENSINGTON. 


307 


I — thirty-five  years  intervening  between  the  laying 
of  the  foundations  and  the  lifting  of  the  cross  to 
the  top  of  the  lantern.  It  is  even  said  that,  when 
he  was  well  upon  ninety,  Wren  supervised  some  of 
the  last  touches  upon  this  noble  monument  to  his 
fame.* 

There  was  not  so  much  smoke  in  London  in 
those  days  — the  consumption  of  coal  being  much 
more  limited  — and  the  great  cross  could  be  seen 
from  Notting  Hill,  and  from  the  palace  windows  at 
Kensington.  The  Queen  never  abandoned  this 
royal  residence ; and  from  the  gravel  road  by  which 
immediate  entrance  was  made,  stretched  away  the 
waste  hunting  ground,  afterward  converted  into 
the  grassy  slopes  of  Hyde  Park  — stagnant  pools 
and  marshy  thickets  lying  in  place  of  what  is  now 
the  Serpentine.  People  living  at  Beading  in  that 
day  — whence  ladies  now  come  in  for  a morning’s 
shopping  and  back  to  lunch — did  then,  in  seasons 
of  heaviest  travelling,  put  two  days  to  the  journey  ; 

* Sir  Christopher  Wren,  h.  1631  ; d.  1723.  The  cathedral 
was  begun  in  1675,  and  virtually  finished  in  1710,  though 
there  may  have  been  many  “ last  touches’*  for  the  aged  ar- 
chitect. 


3o8  lands,  letters,  6-  KINGS, 

and  joined  teams,  and  joined  forces  and  outriders, 
to  make  good  security  against  the  highwaymen 
that  infested  the  great  roads  leading  from  that 
direction  into  the  town.  Queen  Anne  herself  was 
beset  and  robbed  near  to  Kew  shortly  before  she 
came  to  the  throne  ; and  along  Edge  ware  Eoad, 
where  are  now  long  lines  of  haberdasher  shops, 
and  miles  of  gas-lamps,  were  gibbets,  on  which  the 
captured  and  executed  highwaymen  were  hung  up 
in  warning. 

John  Gay, 

Some  of  these  highwaymen  were  hung  up  in  lit- 
erature too,  and  made  a figure  there  ; but  not,  I 
suspect,  in  way  of  warning.  It  was  the  witty  Dean 
Swift  who  suggested  to  the  brisk  and  frolicsome 
poet,  John  Gay,  that  these  gentlemen  of  the  high- 
road would  come  well  into  a pastoral  or  a comedy  ; 
and  out  of  that  suggestion  came,  some  years  later, 
‘‘  The  Beggar’s  Opera,”  with  Captain  Macheath  for 
a hero,  that  took  the  town  by  storm  — ran  for  sixty 
and  more  successive  nights,  and  put  its  musical, 
saucy  songlets  afloat  in  all  the  purlieus  of  London. 
It  was,  indeed,  the  great  forerunner  of  our  ballad 


JOHN  GA  K 309 

operas ; much  fuller,  indeed,  of  grime  and  foul 
strokes  than  Mr.  Gilbert’s  contagious  sing-song ; 
but  possessing  very  much  of  his  briskness  and 
quaint  turns  of  thought,  and  of  that  pretty  shim- 
mer of  language  which  lends  itself  to  melody  as 
easily  as  the  thrushes  do. 

This  John  Gay  * — whose  name  literary-mon- 
gers will  come  upon  in  their  anthologies  — was  an 
alert,  well-looking  young  fellow,  who  had  come  out 
of  Devonshire  to  make  his  way  in  a silk-mercer’s 
shop  in  London.  He  speedily  left  the  silk -mer- 
cer’s; but  he  had  that  about  him  of  joyousness 
and  amiability,  added  to  a clever  but  small  literary 
faculty,  which  won  the  consideration  of  helpful 
friends  ; and  he  never  lost  friends  by  his  antagon- 
isms or  his  moodiness.  Everybody  seemed  to  love 
to  say  a good  word  for  John  Gay.  Swift  was  al- 
most kind  to  him ; and  said  he  was  born  to  be  al- 
ways twenty-two,  and  no  older.  Pope  befriended 
and  commended  him  ; great  ladies  petted  him  ; and 
neither  Swift  nor  Pope  were  jealous  of  a petting 
to  such  as  Gay ; his  range  was  amongst  the  daisies 


♦ John  Gay,  b.  1685 ; d.  1732. 


310 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


— and  theirs  — above  the  tree-tops.  A little  de^ 
scriptive  poem  of  his,  called  Trivia,  brings  before 
us  the  London  streets  of  that  day  — the  coaches, 
the  boot-blacks,  the  red-heeled  cavaliers,  the  book- 
stalls, the  markets,  the  school-boys,  the  mud,  the 
swinging  sign-boards,  and  the  tavern-doors.  In 
the  course  of  it  he  gives  a score  or  more  of  lines 
to  a description  of  the  phenomena  of  the  solidly 
frozen  Thames  — sharply  remembered  by  a good 
many  living  in  his  time  ^ — with  booths  all  along 
the  river,  and  bullocks  cooked  upon  the  frozen 
roads  which  bridged  the  water  ; and  he  tells  of  an 
old  apple- woman,  who  somehow  had  her  head 
lopped  off  when  the  break-up  came,  and  the  ice- 
cakes  plied  above  the  level  — tells  it,  too,  in  a very 
Gilbert-like  way,  as  you  shall  see  : 

“ She  now  a basket  bore  ; 

That  head  alas  ! shall  basket  bear  no  more  I 
Each  booth  she  frequent  past,  in  quest  of  gain, 

And  boys  with  pleasure  heard  her  thrilling  strain. 


* “ O roving  muse  I recall  that  wondrous  year, 

When  hoary  Thames,  with  frosted  osiers  crown’d, 
Was  three  long  moons  in  icy  fetters  bound.” 

The  allusion  is  doubtless  to  the  year  1684,  famous  for  its 
exceeding  cold. 


'JOHN  GAY. 


Sn 


Ah,  Boll ! all  mortals  must  resign  their  breath, 

And  industry  itself  submit  to  Death  ; 

The  cracking  crystal  yields  ; she  sinks  ; she  dies, 

Her  head  chopt  off,  from  her  lost  shoulder  flies ; 

Pippins  ! she  cry’d ; but  death  her  voice  confounds ; 
And— — Pip — P^^— along  the  ice  resounds!  ” 

Then  there  is  the  ballad,  always  quoted  when 
critics  would  show  what  John  Gay  could  do,  and 
which  the  Duchess  of  Queensberry  (who  greatly 
befriended  him)  thought  charming ; I give  the 
two  final  verselets  only  : 

“ How  can  they  say  that  nature 
Has  nothing  made  in  vain  ; 

Why  then  beneath  the  water 
Should  hideous  rocks  remain  ? 

No  eyes  the  rocks  discover, 

That  lurk  beneath  the  deep. 

To  wreck  the  wandering  lover, 

And  leave  the  maid  to  weep  ? 

**  All  melancholy  lying. 

Thus  wailed  she  for  her  dear ; 

Kepaid  each  blast  with  sighing, 

Each  billow  with  a tear ; 

When  o’er  the  white  wave  stooping, 

His  floating  corpse  she  spied ; 

Then,  like  a lily  drooping, 

She  bowed  her  head,  and  died  I 


312 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


I think  I have  shown  the  best  side  of  him  ; and 
it  is  not  very  imposing.  A man  to  be  petted ; ona 
for  confections  and  for  valentines,  rather  than  for 
those  lifts  of  poetic  thought  which  buoy  us  into 
the  regions  of  enduring  song. 

Yet  Swift  says  in  a letter,  ^ The  Beggar's  Opera* 
hath  knocked  down  Gulliver  ! ” This  joyous  poet 
lies  in  Westminster  Abbey,  with  an  epitaph  by 
Alexander  Pope.  How,  then,  can  we  pass  him  by  ? 


Jonathan  Swift. 

But  Dean  Swift*  does  not  lie  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  We  must  go  to  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral, 
Dublin,  to  find  his  tomb,  and  that  bust  of  him 
which  looks  out  upon  the  main  aisle  of  the  old 
church. 

He  was  born  in  Dublin,  at  a house  that  might 
have  been  seen  only  a few  years  ago,  in  Hoey's 


* Jonathan  Swift,  b.  1667;  d.  1745.  Most  noticeable  biog- 
raphies are  those  by  Scott,  Craik,  and  Stephen  ; the  latter 
not  minute,  but  having  judicial  repose,  and  quite  delightful. 
Scott's  edition  of  his  works  (originally  published  in  1814)  is 
still  the  fullest  and  best. 


yONA  THAN  SWIFT  3 1 3 

Court.  His  father,  however,  was  English,  dying 
before  Swift  was  born ; his  mother,  too,  was  Eng- 
lish, and  so  poor  that  it  was  only  through  the  char- 
ity of  an  uncle  the  lad  came  to  have  schooling  and 
a place  at  Trinity  College  — the  charity  being  so 
doled  out  that  Swift  groaned  under  it ; and  groaned 
under  the  memory  of  it  all  his  life.  He  took  his 
degree  there,  under  diflSculties ; squabbling  with 
the  teachers  of  logic  and  metaphysics,  and  turning 
his  back  upon  them  and  upon  what  they  taught. 

After  some  brief  stay  with  his  mother  in  Leicester- 
shire, he  goes,  at  her  instance,  and  in  recognition  of 
certain  remote  kinship  with  the  family  of  Sir  Will- 
iam Temple,  to  seek  that  diplomat’s  patronage.  He 
was  received  charitably  — to  be  cordial  was  not 
Temple’s  manner  — at  the  beautiful  home  of 
Sheen ; * and  thereafter,  on  Temple’s  change  of  res- 

* Sir  William  Temple  did  not  finally  abandon  his  home 
at  Sheen  — where  he  had  beautiful  gardens  — until  the 
year  1689.  A stretch  of  Richmond  Park,  with  its  deer-fed 
turf,  now  covers  all  traces  of  Temple’s  old  home  ; the  name 
however  is  kept  most  pleasantly  alive  by  the  pretty  Sheen 
cottage  (Professor  Owen’s  home),  with  its  carp-pond  in 
front,  and  its  charming,  sequestered  bit  of  wild  garden  in 
the  rear. 


314  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

idence,  was  for  many  years  an  inmate  of  the  house 
at  Moor  Park.  There  he  eats  the  bread  of  depend- 
ence— sulkily  at  times,  and  grudgingly  always. 
Another  protegee  of  the  house  was  a sparkling-eyed 
little  girl,  Hester  Johnson  — she  scarce  ten  when 
he  was  twenty-three  — and  who,  doubtless,  looked 
admiringly  upon  the  keen,  growling,  masculine 
graduate  of  Dublin,  who  taught  her  to  write. 

Swift  becomes  secretary  to  Sir  William ; through 
his  influence  secures  a degree  at  Oxford  (1692) ; 
pushes  forward  his  studies,  with  the  Moor  Park 
library  at  his  hand  ; takes  his  own  measure  — we 
may  be  sure  — of  the  stately,  fine  diplomat ; meas- 
ures King  William  too  — who,  odd  times,  visits 
Temple  at  his  country  home,  telling  him  how  to 
cut  his  asparagus  — measures  him  admiringly,  yet 
scornfully ; as  hard-working,  subtle-thoughted,  am- 
bitious, dependent  students  are  apt  to  measure 
those  whose  consequence  is  inherited  and  facti- 
tious. 

Then,  with  the  bread  of  this  Temple  charity  irk- 
ing his  lusty  manhood,  he  swears  (he  is  overfond  of 
swearing)  that  he  will  do  for  himself.  So  he  tem- 
pestuously quits  Moor  Park  and  goes  back  to  Ire- 


JONATHAN  SWIFT  315 

land,  where  he  takes  orders,  and  has  a little  parish 
with  a stipend  of  £100  a year.  It  is  in  a dismal 
country — looking  east  on  the  turbid  Irish  Sea,  and 
west  on  bog-lands  — no  friends,  no  scholars,  no 
poets,  no  diplomats,  no  Moor-Park  gardens.  Tired 
of  this  waste,  and  with  new  and  better  proposals 
from  Temple  — who  misses  his  labors  — Swift  throws 
up  his  curacy  (or  whatever  it  may  be)  and  turns 
again  toward  England. 

There  is  record  of  a certain  early  flurry  of  feel- 
ing at  date  of  this  departure  from  his  first  Irish 
parish  — a tender,  yet  incisive,  and  tumultuous 
letter  to  one  ‘‘  Varina,”  * for  whom  he  promises  to 
“ forego  all ; ” Varina,  it  would  seem,  discounted 
his  imperious  rapture,  without  wishing  to  cut  off 
ulterior  hopes.  But  ulteriors  were  never  in  the  lex- 
icon of  Swift ; and  he  broke  away  for  his  old 
cover  at  Moor  Park.  Sir  WiUiam  welcomes,  almost 
with  warmth,  the  returned  secretary,  who  resumes 

* “Varina”  was  a Miss  Waring,  sister  of  a college  mate. 
Years  after,  when  Swift  came  by  better  church  appointments, 
Varina  wrote  to  him  a letter  calculated  to  fan  the  flame  of  a 
constant  lover ; but  she  received  such  reply  — at  once 
disdainful  and  acquiescent  — as  was  met  only  with  con- 
temptuous silence. 


3i6 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


old  studies  and  duties,  putting  a iBercer  appetite 
to  his  work,  and  a greater  genius.  Miss  Hester  is 
there  to  be  guided,  too  ; she  sixteen,  and  he  fairly 
turned  among  the  thirties  ; she  of  an  age  to  love 
moonlight  in  the  Moor  Park  gardens,  and  he  of 
an  age — when  do  we  have  any  other?  — to  love 
tender  worship. 

But  The  Battle  of  the  Books  * and  The  Tale  of 
a Tub,  are  even  then  seething  and  sweltering  in 
his  thought.  They  are  wonderful  products  both  ; 
young  people  cannot  warm  to  them  as  they  do  to 
the  men  of  Liliput  and  of  Brobdingnag  ; but  there 
are  old  folk  who  love  yet,  in  odd  hours,  to  get 
their  faculties  stirred  by  contact  with  the  flashing 
wit  and  tremendous  satire  of  the  books  named. 

The  Battle  — rather  a pamphlet  than  a book 
— deals  with  the  antagonism,  then  noisy,  between 
advocates  of  ancient  and  modern  learning,  to 
which  Bentley,  Wotton,  and  Temple  were  parties. 
Swift  strikes  off  heads  all  round  the  arena,  but  in- 
clines to  the  side  of  his  patron.  Temple  ; and  in  a 
wonderful  figure,  of  wonderful  pertinence,  and 

* Both  of  these  satires  written  between  1696-1698,  but  not 
published  till  six  years  later. 


TALE  OF  A TUB, 


317 


with  witty  appointments,  he  likens  the  moderns  to 
noisome  spiders,  spinning  out  of  their  own  entrails 
the  viscous  ‘‘mathematical”  net- work,  which  catches 
the  vermin  on  which  they  feed  ; and  contrasting 
these  with  the  bees  (ancients),  who  seek  natural  and 
purer  sources  of  nutriment  — storing  “wax  and 
honey,”  which  are  the  sources  of  the  “ light  and 
sweetness  of  life.”  There  are  horribly  coarse 
streaks  in  this  satire,  as  there  are  in  The  Tale  of  a 
Tub  ; but  the  wit  is  effulgent  and  trenchant. 

In  this  latter  book  there  is  war  on  all  pedantries 
again  ; but  mostly  on  shams  in  ecclesiastic  teach- 
ings and  habitudes  ; Swift  finding  (as  so  many  of  us 
do)  all  the  shams,  in  practices  which  are  not  his 
own.  It  is  a mad,  strange,  often  foul-mouthed 
book,  with  thrusts  in  it  that  go  to  the  very  mar- 
row of  all  monstrous  practices  in  all  ecclesiasti- 
cisms ; showing  a love  for  what  is  honest  and  of 
good  report,  perhaps  ; but  showing  stronger  love 
for  thwacking  the  skulls  of  all  sinners  in  high 
places ; and  the  higher  the  place  the  harder  is  the 
thwack. 

Not  long  after  these  things  were  a-brewing. 
Sir  William  Temple  died  (1699),  bequeathing  his 


3i8  lands,  letters,  KINGS. 

papers  to  his  secretary.  Swift  looked  for  more. 
So  many  wasted  years  ! Want  of  money  always 
irked  him.  But  he  goes  to  London  to  see  after 
the  publication  of  Temple’s  papers.  He  has  an  in- 
terview with  King  William  — then  in  his  last  days 
— to  whom  Temple  had  commended  him,  but  no 
good  comes  of  that.  He  does,  however,  get  place 
as  chaplain  for  Lord  Berkeley;  goes  to  Ireland 
with  him  ; reads  good  books  to  Lady  Berkeley  — 
among  them  the  Occasional  Reflections  of  the  Hon. 
Robert  Boyle,  of  whose  long  sentences  I gave  a taste 
in  an  earlier  chapter. 

Some  of  these  Boyle  meditations  were  on  the 
drollest  of  topics  — as,  for  instance,  ‘‘Upon  the 
Sight  of  a Windmill  Standing  Still,”  and  again, 
“ Upon  the  Paring  of  a rare  Summer  Apple.” 

Swift  had  no  great  appetite  for  such  “ parings  ; ” 
but  Lady  Berkeley  being  insatiate,  he  slips  a medi- 
tation of  his  own,  in  manuscript,  between  the  leaves 
of  the  great  folio  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Boyle  ; and  open- 
ing to  the  very  place  begins  reading,  for  her  edifi- 
cation, “Meditations  on  a Broomstick.”  “Dear 
me  ! ” says  her  ladyship,  “ what  a strange  subject ! 
But  there  is  no  knowing  what  useful  instructions 


AN  IRISH  PARISH. 


319 


this  wonderful  man  may  draw  from  topics  the 
most  trivial.  Pray,  read  on,  Mr.  Swift.*' 

And  he  did.  He  was  not  a man  given  to  smiles 
when  a joke  was  smouldering  ; and  he  went  through 
his  meditation  with  as  much  unction  as  if  the  Hon. 
Eobert  had  written  it.  The  good  lady  kept  her 
eyes  reverently  turned  up,  and  never  smacked  the 
joke  until  it  came  out  in  full  family  conclave. 

I have  told  this  old  story  (which,  like  most  good 
stories,  some  critics  count  apocryphal)  because  it  is 
so  like  Swift ; he  had  such  keen  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous, that  he  ran  like  a hound  in  quest  of  it  — hav- 
ing not  only  a hound's  scent  but  a hound's  teeth. 

At  Laracor,  the  little  Irish  parish  which  he  came 
by  shortly  after,  he  had  a glebe  and  a horse,  and 
became  in  a way  domesticated  there,  so  far  as  such 
a man  could  be  domesticated  anywhere.  He  dupli- 
cated, after  a fashion,  some  features  of  the  Moor- 
Park  gardens  ; he  wrote  sermons  there  which  are 
surprisingly  good. 

One  wonders,  as  he  comes  from  toiling  through 
the  sweat  and  muck  and  irreverent  satire  of  The 
Tale  of  a Tub,  what  could  have  possessed  the  man 
to  write  so  piously.  He  was  used  to  open  his 


320 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


sermons  with  a little  prayer  that  was  devout  enough 
and  all-embracing  enough  for  the  prayer-book. 
Then  there  is  a letter  of  his  to  a young  clergyman, 
giving  advice  about  the  make-up  of  his  sermons, 
which  would  serve  for  an  excellent  week-day  dis- 
course at  Marquand  Chapel. 

Indeed  he  has  somewhat  to  say  against  the  use 
of  hard  words  — called  by  the  better  sort  of  vul- 
gar, fine  language  ” — that  is  worth  repeating : 

“I  will  appeal  to  any  man  of  letters  whether  at  least 
nineteen  or  twenty  of  these  perplexing  words  might  not  be 
changed  into  easy  ones,  such  as  naturally  first  occur  to  or- 
dinary men  ; . . . the  fault  is  nine  times  in  ten  owing 

to  affectation,  and  not  want  of  understanding.  When  a 
man’s  thoughts  are  clear,  the  properest  words  will  generally 
offer  themselves  first,  and  his  own  judgment  will  direct 
him  in  what  order  to  place  them,  so  as  they  may  be  best 
understood.  In  short,  that  simplicity,  without  which  no 
human  performance  can  arrive  to  any  great  perfection,  is 
nowhere  more  eminently  useful  than  in  this.” 

But  let  us  not  suppose  from  all  tbis  that  Swift 
has  settled  down  tamely,  and  month  by  month,  into 
the  jog-trot  duties  of  a small  Irish  vicar  ; no,  no  ! 
there  is  no  quiet  element  in  his  nature.  He  has 
gone  back  and  forth  from  Dublin  to  London  — • 


PARSON  SWIFT. 


321 


sometimes  on  a Berkeley  errand  — sometimes  on 
his  own.  He  has  met  Congreve,  an  old  school-fel- 
low, and  Prior  and  Gay  ; he  has  found  the  way 
to  Will’s  Coifee-house  and  to  Button’s  ; ^ has  some 
day  seen  Dryden  — just  tottering  to  the  grave  ; 
has  certainly  dined  with  Addison,  and  finished  a 
bottle  with  Steele.  They  call  him  the  mad  par- 
son at  Button’s  ; they  have  seen  The  Tale  of  a 
Tub  ; his  epigrams  are  floating  from  mouth  to 
mouth  ; his  irony  cuts  like  a tiger’s  claw  ; he 
feels  the  power  of  his  genius  tingling  to  his  finger- 
tips — hOy  a poor  Irish  parson ! why,  the  whole  at- 
mosphere around  him,  whether  at  London  or  at 
Dublin,  is  charged  and  surcharged  with  Satan’s 
own  lightning  of  worldly  promises. 

And  Hester  Johnson,  and  Moor  Park  ? Well,  she 
has  not  forgotten  him  ; ah ! no  ; and  he  has  by  no 
means  forgotten  her.  For  she,  with  a good  wom- 
anly friend,  Mrs.  Dingley,  has  gone  to  live  in  Ire- 


* Button’s  was  another  favorite  Coffee-house  in  Bussell 
Street  — on  the  opposite  side  from  Will’s  — and  nearer  Co- 
vent Garden.  I must  express  my  frequent  obligations,  in 
respect  of  London  Topography,  to  the  interesting  Literary 
Landmarks  of  Mr.  Laurence  Hutton. 

II.~21 


322 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


land ; Swift  thinks  they  can  live  more  economically 
there.  These  two  ladies  set  up  their  homestead 
near  to  Swift's  vicarage  ; he  goes  to  see  them  ; 
they  come  to  see  him.  He  is  thirty-three,  and 
past ; and  she  twenty,  and  described  as  beautiful. 
Is  there  any  scandalous  talking  ? Scarce  one  word, 
it  would  seem.  He  is  as  considerate  as  ice  ; and 
she  as  coy  as  summer  clouds. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Swift  had  literary  ambi- 
tion, as  commonly  reckoned.  That  Tale  of  a Tub 
lay  by  him  six  or  seven  years  before  it  came  to 
print.  He  wrote  for  Steele’s  Taller,  and  for  the 
Spectator — not  with  any  understanding  that  his 
name  was  to  appear,  or  that  he  was  to  be  spoken 
admiringly  of.  Many  of  his  best  things  were  ad- 
dressed to  friends  or  acquaintances,  and  never  saw 
the  light  through  any  instigation  or  privity  of  his 
own. 

When  there  was  some  purpose  to  effect  — some 
wrong  to  lash  — some  puppet  to  knock  down  — 
some  tow-head  to  set  on  fire  — some  public  drowsi- 
ness to  wake  — he  rushed  into  print  with  a ven- 
geance. Was  it  benevolence  that  provoked  him  to 
this?  was  it  public  spirit?  Who  can  tell?  I think 


SWIFrS  JOURNEYINGS.  323 

there  were  many  times  when  he  thought  as  much  ; 
but  I believe  that  never  a man  more  often  deceived 
himself  than  did  Swift ; and  that  over  and  over  he 
mistook  the  incentives  of  his  own  fiery  and  smart- 
ing spirit  for  the  leadings  of  an  angel  of  light. 

When  we  think  of  the  infrequency  and  awkward- 
ness of  travel  in  that  day,  we  are  not  a little 
amazed  to  find  him  going  back  and  forth  as  he  did 
from  Ireland  to  London.  The  journey  was  not,  as 
now,  a mere  skip  over  to  Holyhead,  and  then  a five 
hours*  whirl  to  town,  but  a long,  uncertain  sail  in 
some  lugger  of  a vessel — blown  as  the  winds  blew 
— till  a landing  was  made  at  Bristol  or  Swansea ; 
and  then  the  four  to  seven  days  of  coaching  (as  the 
roads  might  be)  through  Bath  to  London.  Some- 
times it  is  some  interest  of  the  poor  Irish  Church 
that  takes  him  over,  for  which  we  must  give  him 
due  credit ; but  oftener  it  is  his  own  unrest.  His 
energies  and  his  unsatisfied  mind  starve  if  not 
roused  and  bolstered  and  chafed  by  contact  with 
minds  as  keen  and  hard,  from  which  will  come 
the  fiery  disputation  that  he  loves.  Great  cities, 
where  great  interests  are  astir  and  great  schemes 
fomenting,  are  magnets  whose  drawing  power  such 


324 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


intellects  cannot  resist.  He  is  in  London  five  or 
six  months  in  1701,  six  or  eight  the  next  year,  six 
or  eight  the  next,  and  so  on. 


Swiff's  Politics. 

He  is  in  politics,  too,  which  ran  at  high  tide  all 
through  Anne’s  time  and  the  previous  reign  ; you 
will  read  no  history  or  biography  stretching  into 
that  period  but  you  may  be  confounded  (at  least  I 
am)  with  talk  of  Whigs  and  Tories  ; and  of  what 
Somers  did,  and  of  what  Harley  did,  and  of  what 
Ormond  might  do ; and  it  is  worth  sparing  a few 
moments  to  say  something  of  the  great  parties. 
In  a large  way  Whiggism  represented  progress  and 
the  new  impulses  which  had  come  in  with  William 
HI.,  and  Toryism  represented  what  we  caU  conser- 
vatism. Thus,  in  Old  Mortality,  young  Henry  Mor- 
ton is  the  Whig,  and  her  ladyship  of  Tillietud- 
lem  is  a starched  embodiment  of  Toryism.  Those 
who  favored  the  Stuart  family,  and  made  a martyr 
of  Charles  I.  — those  who  leaned  to  Eomanism  and 
rituals,  or  faith  in  tradition,  were,  in  general, 
Tories  ; and  those  who  brought  over  William  of 


WHIGS  AND  TORIES. 


32s 

Orange,  or  who  were  dissenters  or  freethinkers, 
were  apt  to  be  Whigs.  So  the  scars  which  came 
of  sword-cuts  by  Cromwellian  soldiers  were  apt  to 
mark  an  excellent  Tory ; and  the  cropped  ears  of 
Puritans,  that  told  of  the  savageness  of  Prince  Eu- 
pert’s  dragoons,  were  pretty  sure  to  brand  a man  a 
Whig  for  life.  But  these  distinctions  were  not 
steady  and  constant ; thus,  the  elegant  and  fastidi^ 
ous  Sir  William  Temple  was  a Whig  ; and  old  Dry- 
den,  clinking  mugs  with  good  fellows  at  WilFa 
cofifee-house,  was  a Tory.  Again,  the  courtly  and 
quiet  Mr.  Addison,  with  his  De  Coverley  reverences, 
was  a good  Whig  ; and  Pope,  with  his  E^my  on 
Man,  and  fellowship  with  freethinkers,  was  Toryish. 
Swift  began  with  being  a Whig,  to  which  side  his 
slapdash  wilfulness,  his  fellowship  with  Temple, 
and  his  scorn  of  tradition  drew  him  ; but  he  end- 
ed with  veering  over  to  the  Tory  ranks,  where  his 
hate  of  Presbyterianism  and  his  eager  thrusts  at 
canting  radicals  gave  him  credit  and  vogue. 

Addison  and  others  counted  him  a turncoat,  and 
grew  cold  to  him;  for  party  hates  were  most  hot  in 
those  days;  Swift  himself  says  — the  politicians 
wrangle  like  cats.  He  was  tired,  too,  of  waiting  on 


326  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


Whig  promises  ; perhaps  he  had  larger  hope  of  pre^ 
ferment  with  the  Tories;  Steele  alleged  this  with 
bitterness;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Swift 
had  an  eye  on  preferment.  Why  not  ? Can  he,  so 
alert  in  mind,  so  loving  of  dignity,  so  conscious  of 
power,  see  Mr.  Addison  coming  to  place  as  Secre- 
tary of  State,  and  Steele  with  his  fat  commissions, 
without  a tingling  and  irritating  sense  of  dissatis- 
faction ? Can  he  see  good,  amiable,  pious  dunces 
getting  planted  year  after  year  in  fat  bishoprics, 
without  a torturing  remembrance  of  that  poor  little 
parish  of  Laracor,  with  a following  so  feeble  that 
he  is  fain  to  open  service  some  days  (his  factotum 
being  the  only  auditor)  with  — My  dearly  beloved 
Eoger,  the  Scripture  moveth  you  and  me  in  sun- 
dry places ” 

How  these  contrasts  must  have  grated  on  the 
mind  of  a man  who  looked  down  on  all  their  lord- 
ships  ; who  looked  down  on  Steele  ; and  who  could 
count  on  his  finger-ends  the  personages  whom  he 
scanned  eye  to  eye  — and  who  were  upon  a level 
with  his  commanding  height. 

He  did  service,  too  — this  master  of  the  pen  and 
master  of  causticity  — that  to  most  would  have 


VEAA^  SWIFT. 


327 


brought  quick  reward  ; but  he  was  too  strong  and 
too  proud  and  too  independent  to  come  by  reward 
easily.  Such  a man  is  bowed  to  reverently ; is  in- 
vited to  dine  hither  and  yon  ; is  flattered,  is  hu- 
mored, is  conciliated ; but  as  for  office  — ah ! that 
is  another  matter.  He  is  unsafe  ; he  will  kick  over 
the  traces  ; he  will  take  the  bit  in  his  mouth  ; he 
will  be  his  own  man  and  not  our  man.  What 
court,  what  cabinet,  what  clique  could  trust  to  the 
moderation,  to  the  docility,  to  the  reticence  of  a 
person  capable  of  writing  Gulliver's  Travels,  and  of 
turning  all  court  scandals,  all  political  intrigues,  all 
ecclesiastic  decorum,  into  a penny-show  ? 

He  is,  indeed,  urged  for  Bishop  of  Hereford  — 
seems  to  have  excellent  chance  there  ; but  some 
brother  Bishop  (I  think  ’tis  the  Archbishop  of 
York),  who  is  much  afraid,  as  he  deserves  to  be, 
of  The  Tale  of  a Tub — says  to  the  hesitating  Queen, 
— ‘‘  Better  inquire  first  if  this  man  be  really  a 
Christian ; ” and  this  frights  the  good  Queen  and 
the  rest.  So  Swift  is  let  off  with  the  poor  sop  of 
the  Deanery  of  St.  Patrick’s. 


328 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  &*  KINGS. 


His  London  Journal. 

We  know  all  about  those  days  of  his  in  London 
— days  of  expectancy.  He  has  told  us  : 

“The  ministry  are  good  hearty  fellows.  I use  them  like 
dogs,  because  I expect  they  will  use  me  so.  They  call  me 
nothing  but  Jonathan.  I said  I believed  they  would  leave 
me  Jonathan,  as  they  found  me  ; and  that  I never  knew  a 
minister  do  anything  for  those  whom  they  make  companions 
of  their  pleasures ; and  I believe  you  will  find  it  so,  but  1 
care  not.” 

And  to  whom  does  he  talk  so  confidentially,  and 
tell  all  the  story  of  those  days?  Why,  to  Hester 
Johnson.  It  is  all  down  in  Stella’s  journal  — writ- 
ten for  her  eye  only ; and  we  have  it  by  purest  ac- 
cident. It  was  begun  in  1710  — he  then  in  his 
forty-third  year,  and  she  in  her  thirtieth. 

She  has  kept  her  home  over  in  Ireland  with  Mrs. 
Dingley  — seeing  him  on  every  visit  there,  and  on 
every  day,  almost,  of  such  visits  ; and,  as  her  sweet- 
est pasturage,  feeding  on  letters  he  writes  other 
times,  and  lastly  on  this  Stella  journal,  for  her 


SWIFTS  JOURNAL.  329 

dear  eyes,”  at  the  rate  of  a page,  or  even  two  pages 
a day,  for  some  three  years. 

All  his  London  day’s  life  comes  into  it.  Let  us 
listen : 

‘‘Dined  at  the  chop-house  with  Will  Pate,  the  learned 
woollen  draper,  then  we  sauntered  at  china-shops  and  book- 
sellers ; went  to  the  tavern  ; drank  2 pints  of  white  wine  ; 
never  parted  till  ten.  Have  a care  of  those  eyes  — pray  — 
pray,  pretty  Stella ! 

“So  you  have  a fire  now,  and  are  at  cards  at  home  ; I 
think  of  dining  in  my  lodgings  to-day  on  a chop  and  a pot 
of  ale. 

“Shall  I ? Well,  then,  I will  try  to  please  M.  D.  [‘  M. 
D.’ is  ‘my  dear;’  or  ‘my  dears,’  when  it  includes,  as  it 
often  does,  Mrs.  Dingley].  I was  to-night  at  Lord  Mash- 
am’s ; Lord  Dupplin  took  out  my  little  pamphlet,  the  Sec- 
retary read  a good  deal  of  it  to  Lord  Treasurer ; they  all 
commended  it  to  the  skies ; so  did  L 

“I’ll  answer  your  letter  to-morrow ; good  night,  M.  D. 
Sleep  well.” 

Again  : 

“ I have  no  gilt  paper  left,  so  you  must  be  content  with 
plain.  I dined  with  Lord  Treasurer. 

“A  poem  is  out  to-day  inscribed  to  me  : a Whiggish 
poem  and  good  for  nothing.  They  teased  me  with  it.” 

“I  am  not  yet  rid  of  my  cold.  No  news  to  tell  you; 
went  to  dine  with  Mrs.  Vanhomrigh,  a neighbor.  [Then 
a long  political  tale,  and]  Good  night,  my  dear  little 
rogues.” 


330  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 

’Tis  a strange  journal ; such  a mingling  of  court 
gossip,  sharp  political  thrusts,  lover-like,  childish 
prattle,  and  personal  details.  If  he  is  sick,  he 
scores  down  symptoms  and  curatives  as  boldly  as  a 
hospital  nurse  ; if  he  lunches  at  a chop-house,  he 
tells  cost ; if  he  takes  in  his  waistcoat,  he  tells 
Stella  of  it ; if  he  dines  with  Addison,  he  tells  how 
much  wine  they  drank ; if  a street  beggar  or  the 
Queen  shed  tears,  they  slop  down  into  that  Stella 
journal ; if  she  wants  eggs  and  bacon,  he  tells 
where  to  buy  and  what  to  give  ; if  Lady  Dalkeith 
paints,  he  sees  it  with  those  great,  protuberant  eyes 
of  his,  and  tells  Stella. 

There  is  coarseness  in  it,  homeliness,  indelicacies, 
wit,  sharp  hits,  dreary  twaddle,  and  repeated  good- 
nights  to  his  beloved  M.  D.’s,  and  — to  take  care 
of  themselves,  and  eat  the  apples  at  Laracor,  and 
wait  for  him.  No  — I mistake ; I don’t  think  he 
ever  says  with  definiteness  Stella  must  wait  for 
him.  I should  say  (without  looking  critically  over 
the  journal  to  that  end)  that  he  cautiously 
avoided  so  positive  a committal.  And  she  ? — ah  ! 
she,  poor  girl,  waits  without  the  asking.  And 
those  indelicacies  and  that  coarseness?  Well,  this 


THE  VANHOMRIGHS. 


331 


strange,  great  man  can  do  nothing  wrong  in  her 
eyes. 

But  she  does  see  that  those  dinings  at  a certain 
Mrs.  Vanhomrigh’s  come  in  oftener  and  oftener. 
’Tis  a delightfully  near  neighbor,  and  her  instinct 
scents  something  in  the  wind.  She  ventures  a 
question,  and  gets  a stormy  frown  glowering  over 
a page  of  the  journal  that  puts  her  to  silence. 
The  truth  is,  Mrs.  Vanhomrigh*  has  a daugh- 
ter — young,  clever,  romantic,  not  without  personal 
charms,  who  is  captivated  by  the  intellect  of  Mr. 
Swift;  all  the  more  when  he  volunteers  direction 
of  her  studies,  and  leads  her  down  the  flowery 
walks  of  poetry  under  his  stalwart  guidance. 

Then  the  suspicious  entries  appear  more  thickly 
in  the  journal.  “Dined  with  Mrs.  Vanhomrigh” 
— and  again:  “Stormy,  dined  with  a neigh- 
bor ” — “ couldn’t  go  to  court,  so  went  to  the 
Vans.”  And  thus  this  romance  went  on  ripening 
to  the  proportions  that  are  set  down  in  the 

* Acquaintance  with  Miss  Vanhomrigh  probably  first 
made  in  winter  of  1708,  but  no  family  intimacy  till  year 
1710.  See  AthencBum^  January  16, 1886,  in  notice  of  Lane- 
Poole’s  Letters  and  Journals  of  Swift. 


332 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


poem  of  Cadenus  and  Vanessa.”  He  is  old,  she 
is  young. 

“ Vanessa,  not  in  years  a score, 

Dreams  of  a gown  of  forty-four  ; 

Imaginary  cliarms  can  find 
In  eyes  with  reading  almost  blind. 

Cadenus,  common  forms  apart, 

In  every  scene  had  kept  his  heart ; 

Had  sigh’d  and  languished,  vowed  and  writ, 

For  pastime  or  to  show  his  wit.” 

But  this  wit  has  made  conquest  of  her  ; she 

** called  for  his  poetic  works  : 

[Cupid]  meantime  in  secret  lurks ; 

And,  while  the  book  was  in  her  hand, 

The  urchin  from  his  private  stand 
Took  aim,  and  shot  with  all  his  strength 
A dart  of  such  prodigious  length. 

It  pierced  the  feeble  volume  through, 

And  deep  transfixed  her  bosom  too.” 

This  is  part  of  bis  story  of  it,  which  he  put  in  her 
hands  for  her  reading  ; ^ and  which,  like  the  Stella 

* Henry  Morley,  in  the  recent  editing  of  his  Carrisbrooke 
Swift.,  lays  stress  upon  the  sufficient  warning  which  Miss 
Vanhomrigh  should  have  found  in  this  poem.  It  appears 
to  me  that  he  sees  too  much  in  Swift’s  favor  and  too  little  in 
Vanessa’s. 


IRELAND  AGAIN. 


333 


journal,  only  saw  the  light  after  the  woman  most 
interested  in  it,  was  in  the  ground. 


In  Ireland  Again. 

Well,  Swift  at  last  goes  back  to  Ireland  — all  his 
larger  designs  having  miscarried  — a saddened  and 
disappointed  man  ; full  of  growlings  and  impa- 
tience ; taking  with  him  from  that  wreck  of  London 
life  and  political  forgatherings,  only  the  poor  flot- 
sam of  an  Irish  deanery. 

He  has  some  few  friends  to  welcome  him  there  : 
Miss  Hester  and  Mrs.  Dingley  among  the  rest.  How 
gladly  would  Stella  have  put  all  her  woman’s  art 
and  her  womanly  affection  to  the  work  of  cheering 
and  making  glad  the  embittered  and  disappointed 
Dean : but  no ; he  has  no  notion  of  being  handi- 
capped by  marriage  ; he  is  sterner,  narrower,  more 
misanthropic  than  ever.  All  the  old  severe  propri- 
eties and  distance  govern  their  intercourse.  He 
visits  them  betimes  and  listens  to  their  adulatory 
prattle ; they,  too,  come  up  to  the  deanery  when 
there  are  friends  to  entertain  ; often  take  posses- 
sion when  the  Dean  is  away. 


334 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


The  church  dignitaries  are  not  open-handed  in 
their  advances ; the  Tale  of  a Tub,  and  stories 
of  that  London  life  (not  much  of  it  amongst 
churches)  have  put  a wall  between  them  and  the 
Dean.  But  he  interests  himself  in  certain  ques- 
tions of  taxation  and  of  currency,  which  seem  of 
vital  importance  to  the  common  people  ; and  he 
wins,  by  an  influence  due  to  his  sharp  pamphleteer- 
ing, what  they  count  a great  relief  from  their  dan- 
gers or  burdens.  Thus  he  becomes  a street  idol, 
and  crowds  throw  up  their  caps  for  this  doctor 
militant,  whom  they  call  the  good  Dean.  He  has 
his  private  large  charities,  too  ; there  are  old 
women,  decrepit  and  infirm,  whom  he  supports  year 
after  year  ; does  this  — Swift-like  — when  he  will 
haggle  a half  hour  about  the  difference  of  a few 
pennies  in  the  price  for  a bottle  of  wine,  and  will 
serve  his  clerical  friends  with  the  lees  of  the  last 
dinner : strange,  and  only  himself  in  everything. 

Then  Miss  Vanhomrigh  — after  the  death  of  her 
mother  — must  needs  come  over  — to  the  great 
perplexity  of  the  Doctor  — to  a little  country  place 
which  she  has  inherited  in  the  pretty  valley  of  the 
Liffey  — a short  drive  away  from  Dublin  ; she  has  a 


MISS  VANHOMRIGH. 


335 


fine  house  there,  and  beautiful  gardens  (Swift  never 
outgrew  his  old  Moor-Park  love  for  gardens) ; there 
she  receives  him,  and  honors  his  visits.  An  old 
gardener,  who  was  alive  in  Scott’s  time,  told  how 
they  planted  a laurel  bush  whenever  the  Dean  came. 
Perhaps  the  Dean  was  too  blinded  for  fine  reading 
in  the  garden  alleys  then  ; certainly  his  fierce  head- 
aches were  shaking  him  year  by  year  nearer  to  the 
grave. 

Miss  Hester  comes  to  a knowledge  of  these  visits, 
and  is  tortured,  but  silent.  Has  she  a right  to 
nurse  torture  ? Some  biographers  say  that  at  her 
urgence  a form  of  marriage  was  solemnized  between 
them  (1716) ; but  if  so,  it  was  undeclared  and  unre- 
garded. Vanessa,  too,  has  her  tortures  ; she  has 
knowledge  of  Stella  and  her  friend,  and  of  their  at- 
titude with  respect  to  the  deanery ; so,  in  a mo- 
ment of  high,  impetuous  daring,  she  writes  off  to 
Mistress  Hester  Johnson  asking  what  rights  she  has 
over  her  friend  the  Dean  ? Poor  Stella  wilts  at  this 
blow  ; but  is  stirred  to  an  angry  woman’s  reply, 
making  (it  is  said)  avowal  of  the  secret  marriage. 
To  the  Dean,  who  is  away,  she  encloses  Vanessa’s 
letter  ; and  the  Dean  comes  storming  back  ; rages 


336  LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS. 


across  the  country,  carrying  to  Miss  Vanhomrigh 
her  own  letter — flings  it  upon  the  table  before 
her,  with  that  look  of  blackness  that  has  made 
duchesses  tremble — turns  upon  his  heel,  and  sees 
her  no  more. 

In  a fortnight,  or  thereabout,  Poor  Vanessa  was 
dead.  It  was  a fever  they  said  ; may  be ; certainly, 
if  a fever,  there  were  no  hopes  in  her  life  now 
which  could  make  great  head  against  it.  She 
changed  her  will  before  her  death,  cutting  ojff 
Swift,  who  was  sole  legatee,  and  leaving  one-half  to 
Bishop  Berkeley  ; through  whom,  strangely  enough, 
Yale  College  may  be  said  to  inherit  a part  of  poor 
Vanessa’s  fortune.* 

Such  a blow,  by  its  side  bruises,  must  needs 
scathe  somewhat  the  wretched  Hester  Johnson  ; 
but  time  brought  a little  healing  in  its  wings.  The 
old  kindliness  and  friendship  that  dated  from  the 
pleasant  walks  in  Moor  Park,  came  back  — as  rosy 
twilights  will  sometimes  shoot  kindly  gleams  be- 
tween stormy  days,  and  the  blackness  of  night 

* Miss  Vanliomrigli  died  in  May,  1723  ; and  the  final  re- 
newal of  Bishop  Berkeley’s  deed  of  gift  (of  the  Whitehall 
farm,  I^ewport)  to  Yale  College,  is  dated  August  17,  1733. 


STELLA* S DEATH, 


337 


And  Swift,  I think,  never  came  nearer  to  insupport- 
able grief  than  when  he  heard  — on  an  absence  in 
London,  a few  years  thereafter  — that  Stella  was 
dying  week  by  week. 

“Poor  Stella,”  “dear  Stella,”  “poor  soul,”  break 
into  his  letters  — break,  doubtless,  into  his  speech 
on  solitary  walks  ; but  in  others’  presence  his  dig- 
nity and  coldness  are  all  assured.  There  is  rarely 
breakdown  where  man  or  woman  can  see  him. 
Old  Dr.  Sheridan  * says  that  at  the  last  she  ap- 
pealed to  him  to  declare  and  make  public  their  pri- 
vate marriage  ; whereat  he  “ turned  short  away.” 
A more  probable  story  is  that  in  those  last  days 
Swift  himself  proposed  public  declaration,  to  which 
the  dying  woman  could  only  wave  a reply  — “ too 
late!” 

She  died  in  1728 : he  in  the  sixty-second  year  of 
his  age,  and  she  forty- eight. 

He  would  have  written  about  her  the  night  she 
died ; had  the  curtains  drawn  that  he  might  not  see 


* Thomas  Sheridan,  D.D.,  father  of  “Dictionary  ” Sheri- 
dan, and  grandfather  of  Richard  Brinsley.  He  was  a great 
friend  of  Swift,  and  Gulliver* s Travels  was  prepared  for  the 
press  at  his  cottage  in  Cavan  (Quilca). 


338 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  KINGS, 


the  light  where  her  body  lay ; but  he  broke  down 
in  the  writing.  They  brought  a lock  of  her  hair  to 
him.  It  was  found  many  years  after  in  an  old  en- 
velope, worn  with  handling,  with  this  inscription  on 
it  — in  his  hand  — Only  a woman's  hair, 

I have  not  much  more  to  say  of  Dean  Swift, 
whose  long  story  has  kept  us  away  from  gentler 
characters,  and  from  verses  more  shining  than  his. 
Indeed,  I do  not  think  the  poems  of  Swift  are  much 
read  nowadays ; surely  none  but  a strong  man 
and  a witty  one  could  have  wi’itten  them  ; but  they 
do  not  allure  us.  Everybody,  however,  remembers 
with  interest  the  little  people  that  Lemuel  Gulliver 
saw,  and  will  always  associate  them  with  the  name 
of  Swift.  But  if  the  stormy  Dean  had  known  that 
his  Gulliver  book  would  be  mostly  relished  by 
young  folks,  only  for  its  story,  and  that  its  tre- 
mendous satire  — which  he  intended  should  cut 
and  draw  blood  — would  have  only  rarest  apprecia- 
tion, how  he  would  have  raved  and  sworn ! 

They  tell  us  he  had  private  prayers  for  his  house- 
hold, and  in  secluded  places  ; and  there  are  those 
who  sneer  at  this — ‘‘as  if  a Dean  should  say 
prayers  in  a crypt ! ’’  But  shall  we  utterly  condemn 


SWIFT. 


339 


the  poor  Publican  who  — though  he  sells  drams 
and  keeps  selling  them  — smites  his  bosom  afar 
off  and  cries,  God  be  merciful ! — as  if  there 
were  a bottom  somewhere  that  might  be  reached, 
and  stirred,  and  sparkle  up  with  effervescence  of 
hope  and  truth  and  purity?  He  was  a man,  I 
think,  who  would  have  infinitely  scorned  and  re- 
volted at  many  of  the  apologies  that  have  been 
made  for  him.  To  most  of  these  he  would  have 
said,  in  his  stentorian  way,  ‘‘  I am  what  I am  ; no 
rosy  after-lights  can  alter  this  shape  of  imperfect 
manhood ; wrong,  God  knows  ; who  is  not  ? But  a 
prevaricator  — pretending  feeling  that  is  not  real 
« — offering  friendship  that  means  nothing — proffer- 
ing gentle  words,  for  hire  ; never,  never  ! ” 

And  in  that  great  Court  of  Justice  — which  I am 
old-fashioned  enough  to  believe  will  one  day  be 
held  — where  jui’ies  will  not  be  packed,  and  where 
truth  will  shine  by  its  own  light,  withstanding  all 
perversion  — and  where  opportunities  and  accom- 
plishment will  be  weighed  in  even  scales  against 
possible  hindrances  of  moral  or  of  physical  make- 
up — there  will  show,  I am  inclined  to  think,  in  the 
strange  individuality  of  Swift,  a glimmer  of  some 


340 


LANDS,  LETTERS,  ^ KINGS. 


finer  and  higher  traits  of  Character  than  we  are 
accustomed  to  assign  him. 

After  Stella’s  death  he  wrote  little  : * perhaps  he 
furbished  up  the  closing  parts  of  Gulliver ; there 
were  letters  to  John  Gay,  light  and  gossipy  ; and  to 
Pope,  weightier  and  spicier. 

But  the  great  tree  was  dying  at  the  top.  He 
grew  stingier  and  sterner,  and  broke  into  wild 
spasms  of  impatience,  such  as  only  a diseased  brain 
could  excuse  and  explain.  His  loneliness  became  a 
more  and  more  fearful  thing  to  be  borne  ; but  who 
shall  live  with  this  half-mad  man  of  gloom  ? 

At  length  it  is  only  a hired  keeper  who  can  abide 
with  him : yet  still  he  is  reckless,  proud,  defiant, 
merciless,  with  no  words  coming  to  his  fagged 
brain  whereby  he  may  express  his  thought ; having 
thoughts,  but  they  were  bitter  ones  ; having  peni- 
tences maybe,  but  very  vain  ones  ; having  remorses 
— ah,  what  abounding  ones ! 

Finally  he  has  no  longer  the  power,  if  the  grace 

* The  Drapier  Letters  were  published  in  1724.  When  the 
successive  parts  of  QuUirer  were  written  it  is  impossible  to 
determine.  A portion  was  certainly  in  existence  as  early  as 
1722.  The  whole  was  not  published  until  1726-27. 


DEATH  OF  SWIFT 


341 


were  in  him,  to  ask  pardon  of  the  humanity  he  has 
wronged  ; or  to  tell  of  the  laments  — if  at  that  stage 
he  entertained  them  — over  the  grave  of  thwarted 
purposes  and  of  shattered  hopes ; condemned  to 
that  imbecile  silence  which  overtook  him  at  last, 
and  held  him  four  weary  years  in  fool’s  grasp, 
suffering  and  making  blundering  unintelligible 
moans. 

He  died  in  1745 — twenty-two  years  after  Va- 
nessa’s death  — seventeen  years  after  the  death  of 
Stella. 


INDEX, 


Addison,  Joseph,  259,  280; 
early  life  of,  288  et  seq.;  his 
“Cato,”  289;  The  Spectator^ 
290;  “Sir  Roger  De  Cover- 
ley,”  291 ; Swift’s  opinion  of 
the  Spectator^  292  ; his  mar- 
riage, 294;  “The  Vision  of 
Mirza,”  295 ; his  political  life, 
297  ; his  death,  298. 

Anne,  Princess,  daughter  of 
James  II.,  262 ; Queen,  267 ; 
her  characteristics,  278;  her 
accession  to  the  throne,  302. 

Aubrey,  94,  141. 

Baxter,  Richard,  his  Saints' 
Nest,  187. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  38,  93 ; 
a quotation  from  “Philaster,” 
97 ; “ The  Faithful  Shepherd- 
ess,” 98. 

Bible,  King  James’,  44  et  seq.; 
dedication  of,  45;  the  revis- 
ers of,  47  et  seq.;  its  literary 
value,  51  et  seq.;  early  Eng- 
lish, 54 ; the  Genevan,  55 ; 
the  Bishops’,  55 ; the  first 
American,  56. 

Blackfriars  Theatre,  34. 


Blenheim  Palace,  305 

Bodley,  John,  55. 

Boyle,  Robert,  207. 

Boyne,  battle  of  the,  20*. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  22C. 

Buchanan,  George,  7. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  and 
Charles  L,  133 ; his  son, 
author  of  “The  Rehearsal,’* 
134. 

Buckingham,  the  Second  Vil- 
liers,  184. 

Bunyan,  John,  209 ; his  birth- 
place, 210 ; his  early  life  and 
marriage,  211 ; a preacher, 
212 ; imprisoned,  213 ; his  FiU 
grim's  Progress^  215. 

Burnet’s  History  of  his  Own 
Times.,  202,  258. 

Burton,  Robert,  author  of  Anat- 
omy of  Melancholy.,  144. 

Busino,  his  account  of  the  repre- 
sentation of  Jonson’s  “ Pleas- 
ure is  Reconciled  to  Virtue,” 
at  Whitehall,  29  et  seq. 

Butler,  Samuel,  author  of  HuHU 
hr  as.,  193. 

Cary,  Sir  Robert,  carries  to 


344 


INDEX. 


Edinburgh  the  news  of  the 
Queen’s  death,  8. 

Charlecote  House,  66. 

Charles  I.,  105,  132;  influence 
of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 
on,  133;  execution  of,  162  et 
seq, 

Charles  IL,  restoration  of,  182; 
death  of,  255. 

Charter  House,  the,  11. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  his  History 
of  the  Rebellion^  201. 

Compton,  Lord,  24. 

Congreve,  William,  269 ; visited 
by  Voltaire,  270. 

Counterblast  to  Tobacco^  the,  of 
James  I.,  7,  104, 

Cowley,  Abraham,  145 ; an  ex- 
tract from  his  “Hymn  to 
Light,”  146;  compared  with 
Tennyson,  147. 

Cromwell,  163. 

Davies,  Sir  John,  his  lines  on 
the  Immortality  of  the  Soul^ 
49. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  258,  272 ; a pam- 
phleteer, 273 ; his  Advice  to 
English  Tradesmen^  274;  his 
Robinson  Crusoe^  276 ; on  the 
Commission  in  Edinburgh, 
277. 

Diodati,  Charles,  the  friend  of 
Milton,  156. 

Donne,  John,  49,  note. 

Dorset,  186. 

Doxology,  of  the  Lord’s  Prayer, 
the,  52. 

Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  28; 
entertains  Jonson,  28  et  seq. 

Dryden,  John,  227 ; his  fertility, 
2.2S ; his  eulogies  of  Cromwell 


and  Charles  11.,  230  et  seq.*, 
Mr.  Saintsbury’s  opinion  of 
his  consistency,  232 ; his  An^ 
nus  Mirabilis^  233  ; the  Lon- 
don of,  234 ; his  plays,  238 ; 
his  Hind  and  Panther.,  241 ; 
his  Virgil,  243  ; his  “ All  for 
Love,”  244  ; estimate  of  him, 
246,  259,  261. 

Ellwood,  Milton’s  friend,  175o 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  and  the  Eng- 
lish Bible,  55. 

Elizabeth,  daughter  of  James  I., 

100. 

England  at  the  death  of  Eliza- 
beth, 1 et  seq. 

Etherege,  186. 

Evel3rn,  John,  137 ; his  diary^ 

201. 

Ford,  John,  91. 

Fortunes  of  Nigel.,  Scott’s,  its 
picture  of  James  I.,  19,  35. 

Freeman,  Mr.,  his  misleading 
averment  as  to  the  errors  in 
Ivanhoe,  20. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  his  English 
Worthies.,  221. 

Gay,  John,  308;  his  “Beggar’s 
Opera,”  308 ; his  Trivia.,  310. 

Globe  Theatre  in  Shakespeare’s 
time,  33,  36. 

Gosson,  Stephen,  a representa- 
tion of  the  Puritan  feeling,  42. 

Greenwich  Hospital,  265. 

Hampton  Court  Conference, 
44  et  seq. 

Harrison,  William,  20  et  seq. 

Herbert,  George,  the  poet,  7 ! 


INDEX. 


345 


poems  of,  115 ; his  marriage, 
118,  128. 

Herbert,  Lord,  of  Cherbury,  7. 

Herbert,  William,  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, 74,  note. 

Herrick,  Robert,  120 ; speci- 
mens of  his  verse,  122 ; char- 
acter of,  124  ; his  Hesperides^ 
125. 

Howell,  James,  107. 

JludibrcLS^  193. 

James  I.,  his  pedigree,  4 et 
seq. ; his  person  and  character, 
6 et  seq.  ; his  journey  to  Lon- 
don to  be  crowned,  9 et  seq.  ; 
his  family,  100;  tastes  and 
characteristics  of,  101  et  seq.  ; 
his  Counterblast  to  the  Use  of 
Tobacco,  36,  104. 

James  II.,  256. 

Johnson,  Hester  (“Stella’’), 
314,  321 ; Swift’s  letters  to, 
328 ; “Stella’s  Journal,”  329 ; 
her  secret  marriage  with 
Swift,  335;  and  Vanessa, 
335  ; death  of,  337. 

Jonson,  Ben,  his  adulation  of 
the  King,  26;  his  literary 
versatility,  27 ; his  masque 
at  Whitehall,  29  et  seq.,  106. 

Judith  Shakespeare,  William 
Black’s  novel,  33. 

Kenilworth,  Walter  Scott’s, 

201. 

Kensington  in  Queen  Anne’s 
time,  308. 

Kingsley’s  pictures  of  Eliza- 
bethan characters  and  times, 
18  et  seq. 


Lamb,  Charles,  influence  of 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  upon, 
224 ; his  essay,  “ The  Genteel 
Style  in  Writing,”  227. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  134,  136. 

Lily,  Milton’s  schoolmaster,  152, 
186. 

Locke,  John,  his  treatise  on  the 
Human  Understanding,  249 ; 
his  life,  250 ; on  education, 
252. 

“McFingal,”  the,  of  John 
Trumbull,  196. 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  303. 

Marlborough,  Duchess  of,  302; 
her  influence  over  Queen 
Anne,  304. 

Marston,  John,  specimen  of  his 
satire,  92. 

Marvell,  Andrew,  Milton’s  as- 
sistant, 170 ; story  of  his 
good  fortune,  189  ; his  “ Gar- 
den,” etc.,  191. 

Mary,  Queen,  daughter  of  James 
II,  262 ; death  of,  301. 

Massinger’s  “A  New  Way  to 
Pay  Old  Debts,”  60,  93,  94. 

Masson’s  Life  and  Times  of 
Milton,  151. 

Mermaid  Tavern,  the,  34,  151. 

Milton,  John,  150 ; Masson’s 
Life  of,  151 ; his  father,  151 ; 
at  school,  152  ; his  early  verse, 
153  et  seq. ; at  Cambridge,  153 ; 
his  travels,  156  ; his  marriage 
to  Mary  PoweU,  157 ; his 
daughters,  160  ; his  first  pub- 
lished poems,  160  ; his  pam- 
phlets, 161 ; his  defence  of 
regicide,  164  ; in  peril,  167 ; 
domestic  life,  169 ; Munkac- 


346 


INDEX. 


sy’s  picture  of,  169 ; his  third 
marriage,  171 ; The  Paradise 
Lost^  171 ; his  use  of  other 
books,  173 ; his  last  days, 
174 ; payments  for  his  Para- 
dise.^  176 ; deserted  by  his 
daughters,  177  ; Paradise  Re- 
gained and  Samson  Agonis- 
tes^  177,  188 ; his  death,  179. 

Mortality,  Old,  Scott’s  novel, 
264. 

Newton,  Isaac,  207,  258. 

“New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts, 
A,”  60,  94. 

Nigel,  Scott’s  novel,  19,  35. 

Old  Mortality,  Scott’s  novel, 
324. 

Otway,  Thomas,  237. 

Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  114,  his 
Characters. 

“Overreach,  Sir  Giles,”  60,  94. 

Penn,  William,  258. 

Pepys,  Mr. , his  purchase  of 
Mudihras,  194, 198 ; his  diary, 
199 ; extracts  from,  202. 

Peveril  of  the  Peak,  Scott’s, 
184. 

Primer,  the  Old  New  England, 
54. 

Prior,  Matthew,  258,  268. 

Prynne,  William,  142 ; his  His- 
triomastix,  143. 

Raleigh,  Walter,  11  et  seq.; 
in  the  Tower,  13 ; his  Histo- 
ry of  the  World,  13 ; his  expe- 
dition to  Guiana, 13;  executed, 
15 ; specimens  of  his  writ- 


ings, 15  et  seq.;  his  Ocean  to 
Cynthia,  17,  note  ; his  life  an 
epitome  of  Elizabethan  times, 
18. 

Rochester,  Earl  of,  185. 

Seldon,  John,  his  Table-Talk, 
129. 

Shakespeare,  32  et  seq. ; 56  et  seq. ; 
his  characters  real,  58  ; his 
personality,  61 ; his  family  re- 
lations, 67 ; his  children,  68, 
84 ; in  London,  73  et  seq.;  early 
poetry,  75;  “Love’s  Labor’s 
Lost,”  76,  77;  his  “Venus 
and  Adonis,”  and  “Lucrece,” 
77 ; like  Chaucer  in  taking 
his  material,  79 ; his  closing 
years,  81  et  seq.;  his  son-in- 
law,  Dr.  Hall,  83. 

Sheridan,  Thomas,  337. 

Sidney,  Lady  Dorothy,  pursued 
by  Waller,  149. 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  74. 

Spencer,  Sir  John,  his  dwelling, 
Crosby  Hall,  23 ; a letter  of 
his  daughter,  24  et  seq. 

Steele,  Richard,  259  ; author  of 
the  Taller,  280  ; his  Christian 
Hero,  281 ; his  marriages,  281 
et  seq.;  his  literary  qualities, 
285. 

Stratford,  the  town  of,  and  sur- 
rounding country,  63 ; a walk 
to,  from  Windsor,  70. 

Stuart,  house  of,  4. 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  140;  his 
tragic  death,  142. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  226,  259;  early 
life  of,  312 ; his  life  at  Sir 
William  Temple’s,  313 ; goes 
back  to  Ireland,  314  ; his  Bat- 


INDEX. 


347 


He  of  the  Books  and  Tale  of  a 
Tub,  316  ; appointed  chaplain 
to  Lord  Berkeley,  318;  his 
politics,  324  ; his  London  life, 
328 ; Stella's  Journal,  328, 
“Cadenus  and  Vanessa,” 
332 ; back  in  Ireland,  333 ; his 
secret  marriage  with  Stella, 
335;  his  Gulliver’s  Travels, 
340 ; his  madness  and  death, 
340. 

Swinburne,  his  estimate  of  Web- 
ster, 89. 

Taine,  his  overdrawn  picture  of 
the  Restoration,  186. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  135 ; his  career, 
136 ; his  Holy  Living  and  Dy^ 
ing,  139. 

Taylor,  John,  “the  Water  Po- 
et,” a favorite  of  James.  I., 
102. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  224,  313  ; 
death  of,  317. 

Theobalds,  King  James*  palace, 
10,  105. 

Tillotson,  John,  188. 

Tobacco  in  literature,  103  et 
seq. 


Trumbull,  John,  his  McFingal, 
196. 

“ Two  Noble  Kinsmen,”  95. 

Vanbrugh,  Sir  John,  306. 

“Vanessa,”  Swift’s  letter  to, 
315. 

Vanhomrigh,  Miss  (“Vanes- 
sa ”),  331  ; death  of,  336. 

Waller,  Edmund,  145 ; his 
literary  importance,  149. 

Walton,  Izaak,  111 ; his  Angler, 
112  ; his  biographic  sketches, 
113. 

Webster,  John,  88 ; Dyce’s  edi- 
tion of  his  works,  89 ; character 
of  his  plays,  90 ; Swinburne’s 
estimate  of,  89. 

Westward,  Hof  Kingsley's,  18. 

William  and  Mary,  256. 

William  of  Orange,  263  et  seq. 

William  III.,  263;  his  death. 
301. 

Will’s  Coffee-house,  236. 

Woodstock,  Scott’s  novel,  168. 

Woodstock,  the  park  at,  305. 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  109. 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  306. 


